


Share Your Dreams

by Edwardina



Series: The Cherish 'Verse [7]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blindfolds, D/s AU, Deliberate Badfic, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, In Public, Jock Straps, Kissing, Light BDSM, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Phone Sex, Subspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 51,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edwardina/pseuds/Edwardina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of <i>Cherish Is the Word I'd Use</i>.  Alternate prom plans are presented to both Sam and Kurt.  The <i>Muckraker</i> adds some drama to Sam's birthday, but that doesn't stop Kurt from going all-out in his own Dommy way.  However, all the gossip drives Kurt to fight with Finn and finally ask Sam about his experiences in boarding school.  After that, Sam asks for a special sort of training.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Share Your Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This returns to Kurt's perspective and straddles events in 219. Writing Finn was therapeutic for me. Also, guys, the timeline of events in "Rumours" is completely wack in canon, so I'm just doing whatever I want here. Title from "Cherish" by The Association.
> 
> Thanks to Kate, who holds my hand a lot, reads through these for me, and selflessly acts as a helpful soundboard when I really need it. I could not have written this far or freely without her help.

Unlike Finn, Kurt had the decency to knock.

After a few beats and some suspicious rustling noises, Finn called out, "Yeah?"

Given the all-clear, Kurt poked his head into his stepbrother's room, spotting him lying on his stomach on his bed with one hand shoved under his pillows.

"Am I interrupting?" asked Kurt, wary.

"What? No," said Finn quickly.

"Uh-huh," Kurt responded. "Can I borrow your muscles for a minute, Mr. Quarterback?"

"Yeah, sure," Finn relented with a sigh, rolling to his side and tossing his long legs over the side of the bed. He watched Finn push his gigantic self up. "You rearranging your room again? I thought you finally had everything where you wanted it."

"Everything's right where I want it," said Kurt, lifting his hand to motion Finn to follow him and heading off down the hall. "I'm just – tweaking something. And suffice to say, I underestimated the weight of my new mattress."

"Tell me about it! I'm still not used to sleeping on a bed that actually fits me."

"Barely," kidded Kurt.

"Barely," Finn agreed.

He opened his door for his stepbrother, who saw the piles of pillows and strewn coverlets in the corner and chuckled at the way Kurt's mattress was awry, hanging heavily off the corner of the bed.

"What are you trying to do, exactly? Flip it?"

"Let me just shut the door real quick," said Kurt, mindful of the fact that their parents were downstairs watching _The King of Queens_. Once it was clicking behind him, he saw that Finn looked a tad wary. "I have something that I'm installing. Under it."

"What, like... a... shoe... organizer...?"

"Charming suggestion," said Kurt, "but no, it's nothing you can buy at Sheets-N-Things. Unless there's a section of the store I'm unaware of."

It took Finn a few seconds to follow him, but his face went from confused to suspicious. "Dude, no way."

"Look, I feel awkward asking you, but would you just help me get the mattress off the box spring, wait a minute while I fit the thing to the mattress, then help me get it back on? Three minutes, tops."

"You're shitting me," insisted Finn.

"I assure you, I'm not."

"You have to show me!"

"You have to promise not to tell Dad or Carole!"

"Let's say," Finn proposed deliberately, "I never saw this and you never saw my browser history."

"Aw, so the blackmail chapter of our relationship is officially behind us," observed Kurt. "Fair enough."

He went to his closet, where he'd put the plain cardboard shipper, and bent to pull his purchase from it.

Several days of unwise online window-shopping had left Kurt with a super weird browser history, himself. Between his searches for party ideas for bowling alleys that all seemed to be aimed towards third-graders and repeatedly visiting bondage equipment stores, Google probably thought he was a stay-at-home mom running a dungeon out of her basement.

Researching bondage equipment was becoming a real hobby of his. Acquainting himself with what was out there was certainly an education, and reading what other Doms and subs liked was intriguing. Kurt had always known Dominants came in every flavor from vanilla to, um... insanely rocky road. Everyone did. People joked about it. But the spectrum ran wider than Kurt had ever even imagined. He wasn't totally sure where he fell, in the scheme of things. He had always fundamentally understood and looked forward to the pleasure of seeing a collar of his choosing marking his total dominion over a guy whose desire it was to belong to him. But he never would have been able to anticipate how it actually felt to have a submissive, or to think of his beautiful, brawny sub in particular when he looked at all this stuff.

Said submissive's birthday was Tuesday, but... Kurt had really been shopping for himself when he'd picked out a restraint system.

In terms of bondage gear, the series of adjustable black straps was definitely on the tame side, but Finn still looked completely astounded, his mouth slipping open as he stared at the four cuffs that dangled from the straps.

"This long, thick strap here goes under the mattress, head to foot," said Kurt, pulling the strap taut between his hands and holding it up so Finn could see. "Four others are attached. It's shaped sort of like a capital 'I,' all laid out. The other straps come up around the mattress in pretty much any configuration you could dream up, so... basically I could restrain someone in whatever position I wanted, to whatever end. And when it's not in use, it's easy to just tuck all the straps out of sight, so no one would ever suspect."

"Kurt," Finn started, but it didn't seem as if he actually had anything else to say. He was blinking a lot, and Kurt wondered if he was trying to push away thoughts about his teammate being restrained with those very straps or if he was just that surprised.

"As you can see, my headboard doesn't really facilitate restraint," said Kurt, watching Finn glance over at it blankly. "I can't handcuff or even tie anything to it, and I don't think I could realistically hide a spreader bar from our parents, so this is the next best thing."

"You're really serious," said Finn after a pause.

"Of course."

"Wow," said Finn. "This is kinda hardcore of you."

Kurt couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing, the way Finn was staring at it. He gathered the straps somewhat self-consciously. "Is it?"

"Um. Yeah, dude," said Finn, and laughed under his breath. "But it's kinda cool, too. I can't believe you would actually get this kind of thing!"

"Well, believe it, buddy!" said Kurt, relaxing and smiling. So Finn was impressed, or maybe even proud. It wasn't often that anyone was impressed with him. His eye for vintage brooches and highly organizational brain were as criminally underappreciated as his falsetto. The ways in which he dominated Sam particularly seemed to confuse others, even his friends; Blaine took him seriously in comparison to most people, yet he also seemed amazed that Kurt bothered. Since Finn was both a popular, championship-winning football player and a sub, it always felt rewarding to gain his respect rather than his ire.

"Let's go ahead and get it in place, I guess," said Finn, stepping in and grabbing the end of Kurt's mattress. He paused immediately, eyeing it. "You know, you could just, like, slide it under the mattress from the side and kinda scoot it without lifting the mattress. We don't need to haul it all the way off the box spring."

"I have to adjust it to fit, though," said Kurt, fingering one of the slides.

"That's no problem," said Finn, and went ahead and shoved Kurt's mattress back into its proper place with a manly grunt. "Let's just get it under there, then I'll hold up the end of the mattress while you adjust."

"My, my! What a problem-solver," marveled Kurt. "How about you take one end and I'll take the other, and we'll slide it under."

Finn acquiesced, taking the side of the strap that Kurt handed to him and smiling awkwardly.

It had to be a little weird, Kurt supposed, to be touching something that had such an explicit purpose and belonged to your brother, who at one point totally had a crush on you and maybe might have liked to use such a thing on you.

Even if he and Finn weren't technically related, it still felt like they were brothers at this point. Knowing the kind of porn Finn had on his laptop was more gross than interesting now that they'd lived together for a year and Kurt's silly crush had evaporated. Yes, Kurt had wasted a lot of time and energy thinking he could casually dom Finn around the house without him noticing and that it would make Finn eventually, inevitably succumb to his inner desires and curiosities – but alas, Finn had noticed and had not appreciated it. Now they shared a bathroom and he washed Finn's stubble out of the sink every other day. The mystique was definitely gone. But in its place was a friendship born of sharing their lives in a strictly platonic way. That Kurt was a Dom and Finn a sub, Kurt gay and Finn straight, typically didn't make itself present in their conversations as much as who was doing what after school, what was for dinner, and what was that choreography, again? To his credit, Finn had adjusted nicely to his new status quo. Getting his own room had helped.

Together they managed to slide the strap underneath Kurt's mattress, and with care, wiggled it to about the center, leaving the four straps (one for each wrist and ankle) dangling at the head and foot of the bed. The mattress really did have some solid heft to it. Kurt could tell that between the weight of the mattress and the weight of his sub, this deceptively light system of straps would be pretty effective.

Once the anchoring strap was in place, they hoisted up the end of the mattress together, then Finn held it up just enough for Kurt to reach under and slide things to fit to his exacting preferences.

"Y'know, you could have asked Sam to do this for you," Finn grunted.

"He's at work," Kurt said, on his knees as he experimentally pulled at and arranged the two ankle straps. A hot thrill shot through him when he thought of Sam's ankles bound and held wherever his Dom wanted them to be held.

The black cuffs that had come attached to the straps were flimsy in comparison to his sub's thick, badass leather wrist cuffs. They simply attached with Velcro – but that was good. He was still a bondage newbie. Velcro wasn't too intimidating. Kurt intended on just removing the wrist cuffs and using the D-rings on Sam's as they were meant to be used, but maybe if Sam liked this, he'd upgrade the ankle cuffs, too. He felt himself stiffen in his jeans as all that occurred to him in the space of a few heartbeats. Tuesday, he told himself, aware of Finn hulking over him.

"Okay, but you could've waited till the next time he comes over," said Finn. "He could help set this up, easy. I mean. This is... for him, right. You're going to use this with him."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to use it with anyone else," said Kurt airily.

"'Course not," said Finn.

"I think this might actually be good," decided Kurt, sitting back on his calves and resting his palms on his thighs. "Thanks, Finn. You can drop it."

Finn did so with some relief, stepping back to look at the straps as they dangled over the foot of the bed. He watched as Kurt calmly took one of the ankle straps, peeled it open with two loud rips of Velcro, and tucked the flattened cuff under the mattress, effectively hiding it from sight. He planted his hands on his hips and observed while Kurt went from corner to corner, tending each one. Kurt just went ahead and unhooked the wrist straps. He didn't want to take Sam's cuffs off him, so these weren't needed.

"If you need to adjust it, or anything, you should have Sam do it," he finally said.

"Should I?" asked Kurt. He blinked at Finn, who shrugged nonchalantly.

"I just mean, it'd be pretty humiliating."

"Humiliating?"

"Yeah, totally," Finn said. "Making him adjust the thing he's about to get strapped into."

"Ah," said Kurt, tucking the left wrist strap away slowly. He couldn't tell whether that sounded good to him or not.

He got it, of course – how powerful it was to put someone in the position of lesser-than. Not just to have them act as a personal assistant or servant, but to tip the balance even harder, purposefully pluck at someone else's innate sense of pride and self-awareness. Dom or sub, everyone who had ever gone to high school could understand the power of it, probably. He wondered if Quinn focused on humiliating her subs and if Sam had experienced any of that in private, or if that was maybe more of a particular vulnerability of Finn's.

Back when Finn had first joined glee, it had been incredibly hard to keep him in the club. He'd been an easy target for guys like Azimio and Karofsky and had taken a bunch of crap from the football team. Finn was always pinning his hopes on winning Nationals like it would make glee club cool and get the snickers and harassment to stop.

Sam definitely had his own sense of pride. At one time, Sam too had been reluctant to sacrifice his jock reputation to the altar of glee, but Finn had talked him into it when Puck had taken a side-trip to juvie and they needed another guy. He hadn't quit after getting slushied, nor had he quit football when his shoulder had been dislocated and the quarterback position given back to Finn. But he'd seemed really insulted when Jacob Ben Israel had been dogging them in the hallway and suggested he might ask to be released from Kurt. He was dedicated and loyal, even if it didn't benefit him – and protective of the people he cared about. And even though he wasn't really interested in clothes, Sam seemed to want to look good, or how he thought his Dom wanted him to. He'd done a pitch-perfect job recreating that whole Bieber look. Maybe it was vanity, or maybe it was just part of his desire to be accepted and pleasing. Either way, he seemed conscious about how he looked, physically, enough to make a drastic change to his hair before starting at McKinley and to keep super fit.

Kurt could imagine Sam lifting the mattress for him, and being all to happy to do so. Sam seemed eager to do things in service, not embarrassed. Knowing Sam, he'd approach the task like it was an honor and privilege, maybe thank Kurt for allowing him to touch the straps or the mattress or pretty much anything.

Kurt found himself biting his lower lip, another flush of arousal creeping over him at his lizard brain's ideas, and again, tried to push away the thoughts for later. He coughed delicately. "Thanks for the pro tip."

"No problem."

"Not to be nosy," he found himself saying, "and you don't have to tell me, let alone give me gory details, but... just out of curiosity... is that the kind of thing Quinn would make you do?"

"Oh, Quinn – Quinn wouldn't do this kind of thing," said Finn, eyes darting. "Too much work. It's more the way she acts. She just knows how to get in your head, you know?"

"Sure, sure," said Kurt neutrally.

"Okay, well... if we're done here, I'm gonna get back to my, uh, studying. Yeah," said Finn, backing away. He waved his arms and said, "And when I leave this room, I will magically forget all that has transpired here. I saw nothing. Straps? What straps? I don't know what straps even are! Why are you asking me?"

"Good philosophy, Sally Brown. And I never saw pages upon pages of barely-legal pregnant teens stepping on some poor schmuck's disco stick."

"No clue what you're talking about," said Finn, pretty convincingly, and grinned as he left and shut the door behind him.

 

*

 

Kurt's Monday hit a speed bump when Rachel, wearing truly the most heinous of toddler-esque sailboat sweaters, marched right up to him after second period and declared, "I need to talk to you about prom."

Along with his French book, Kurt put away stray thoughts to give Rachel his full attention. If she wanted his opinion on a prom dress as equally sad as her sweater, he was more than happy to provide honest feedback.

"What about it?"

"I want your permission to take Sam."

Not sure he'd heard that right, Kurt arched a brow.

"I'm sorry, I think I just went temporarily deaf. Could you repeat that?"

"I want to take Sam to prom," she said factually.

He stared at her sunny smile like her hair was made of cats and she'd asked him to braid their tails. It had been a while since he'd heard Rachel Crazy of this quality. "Oh, how I've missed your insanity."

"What? How am I insane?" she asked, chipper. "I need a date! Finn's with Quinn, Puck's barking up the wrong tree that is Lauren Zizes, Mike and Artie are spoken for –"

"And Sam's not?" Kurt asked, frankly insulted.

"I mean, of course he's your sub, Kurt! NASA can see his cuffs from space. But since you two aren't going, I thought maybe you'd consider letting him escort someone else, namely me. Just as friends! I'm not trying to steal him away from you."

"What makes you so sure he's not going to prom with me?" Kurt demanded. He was more getting offended by the second, even though Rachel was right – they hadn't made any plans to go together. They hadn't even talked about it once.

"Um, who's going with whom is schoolwide knowledge," said Rachel, "but if you must know, Tina told me that Mike told her that Sam said he wasn't going. So since you aren't taking him, I thought he could be my date! I promise to take good care of him for the evening and return him to you without a single scratch. Also, as you probably recall, I'm now a teetotaler for life, so there will be no drunk kissing, either. Promise."

His ears burning, Kurt fumbled with angry fingers for his chemistry book. He already knew that going with Sam to junior prom was a silly desire on his part, and one that wouldn't come to fruition, not even in the heat of his Dommiest moments. Sam was probably working that night. He worked every shift the manager at Nice Slice was willing to give him to try and help his family stay off the streets, and having seen where they were living, he had a renewed sense of how incredibly important it was. Even though he knew Sam would try his hardest to do whatever he thought his Dom wanted of him, Kurt wouldn't have dreamed of even hinting to Sam that he should ditch work.

But Rachel didn't know any of that.

"Sorry, Rachel," he said, with some cool faux sympathy. "I don't think so."

She seemed somehow taken aback. "What? Why not? I thought we were friends now."

"We are friends. I just don't think Sam can go."

"Well, why can't he go?"

"I think he's busy."

"You think he's busy?" she asked persistently. "Or do you just not want him to go with a girl? Especially one with my talent and star quality and ability to rival you in the soprano range?"

"You know what? Fine," said Kurt, slamming his locker shut like Rachel had pounded on a reflex. "If you want to, you can ask him."

"Yes!" Rachel said, clenching her fist triumphantly. "I knew you'd see it my way, Kurt."

"When he turns you down, don't take it personally," Kurt said, turning on the spot with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, what if he says yes? Are you going to ban me from your blog and start glaring at me in the choir room again?"

"Don't worry, that won't happen," he said, his light and steady voice not giving away the fact that he was only about sixty percent certain of that.

The thought of Sam accepting an offer, however temporary and benign, from another Dom – God, the more he thought about it, the more it annoyed him. He was so completely distracted throughout chemistry that he forgot to take notes, then nearly knocked over the roaring Bunsen burner he was sharing with Becky Jackson.

"Get your head in the game, Hummel," Becky complained. "Some of us need to pass this class."

Kurt boiled with silent indignation the same way his beaker of water boiled on the Bunsen.

The idea of his sub on the arm of a girl again. In front of the whole school, no less! A girl who thought she could just have him for a night, borrow him like a handbag. A girl who had no concept of Sam's life and could easily abuse his need to please. He could imagine the gymnasium all dolled up with crepe paper and a disco ball and Rachel gliding around putting on airs like Scarlett O'Hara, his poor clueless Sam on her arm. It would confuse everyone, he thought irrationally. They would wonder if Sam was about to trade hands yet again and if he really was straight after all, and they'd gossip about him even more than they already did. They might not even see his collars if Sam wore the suit jacket he'd worn to church on Easter.

"Ugh, you're stirring too hard!" said Becky, shoving his arm.

Leave it to Rachel to make him suddenly feel like he was locked in competition for his own submissive! He had sort of developed a soft spot for her this year, and knew that on some level she was really a kindred spirit, but that didn't mean he wasn't prepared to re-break that little hussy's nose.

The bell rang, jarring him from his thoughts.

He had no idea what the result of the experiment in front of him was.

"Hey, Becky, can I borrow your notes?" he asked.

"No. You suck," she said harshly, and swept off.

Kurt sighed irritably, flagged down a classmate who was painfully frumpy but willing to let him borrow her notes, then took himself down to the cafeteria doors, where Sam waited for him every day. He needed to warn Sam about what was coming.

But he could tell at first glance that Rachel had already gotten to him, as he was slouching against the wall next to the doors and wore a look of deep confusion that turned to apprehension when he saw Kurt coming, a nervous breath lifting his chest and righting his posture.

All the turbulence in Kurt smoothed out, the need to comfort Sam a bigger feeling. He reached out for Sam's hand.

"Hi, beautiful."

Sam glanced down at Kurt's fingers twining with his and mouthed, "Oh!"

It felt so right to hold Sam's hand and be his Dom, his anchor and supporter, that Kurt suddenly didn't know what had gotten him so riled. Sam was his. Of course other people were bound to realize that he was a catch and want him, but he was wearing Kurt's collar.

"Is something up?" he asked, perfectly aware.

"Uh, Rachel... Rachel just told me my lips are cute and asked me to be her date to prom," said Sam, brows bunched as if it was the weirdest thing he'd ever conceived of. 

"Oh?" Kurt asked pleasantly. "What'd you say?"

"I said no!"

"Aw, poor Rachel, rejected by the cutest sub in the entire school. Did you let her down easy?"

"I – I have no idea," said Sam, shaking his head. "I mean, I tried to be nice, but it was... weird. She came right up to me with these crazy eyes. I mean. I can't really go, and..." He looked quickly at Kurt's face, then fixed his stare on Kurt's feet instead. "I didn't know what to say, so... I just told her she's not my type."

"Oh," Kurt breathed, pleased in spite of his affected zen about the whole situation.

"I can't afford tickets, so," mumbled Sam.

"That's okay, honey," Kurt said, leaning his cheek against Sam's shoulder. The red and blue flannel he was wearing felt old and over-washed and soft as a result.

"I mean... I wish I could..."

For a moment, Kurt let his cheekbone skim against Sam's shoulder. He thought of assuring Sam that he didn't have to pay for anything; if Rachel was so bent on going to the dance, it was likely she was willing to pay his way. Just like Kurt would have been willing to buy their tickets, rent Sam a tux – whatever. But he was sure Sam didn't want to tell Rachel he couldn't afford tickets anyway, and he still definitely didn't want Sam to go to prom with someone else. Plus, he didn't want to overwhelm him when he was so busy and taxed already by suggesting he ought to be worrying about junior prom on top of being his family's main provider. So he said, looking up from Sam's shoulder, "There'll be other dances."

A sigh gusted from Sam, and his mouth twitched in the corner that tended to be the first to smile, but it was more of a sad tug than a happy one, judging by the way Sam's eyelids were heavy and his gaze gone astray.

"Rachel's kind of insane sometimes," said Kurt, changing the subject, "but I'll give her props. She's certainly right about your lips."

Sam looked owl-eyed. "She said everyone's always making fun of them."

"Oh – I thought she said they were cute!"

"Well... yeah. She said that, too, but..."

"And they are cute," insisted Kurt, lifting his chin to rest it on Sam's shoulder. Squeezing Sam's hand, he whispered, "I love your lips. They're gorgeous. And so soft. I love touching them, and I love it when you touch me with them."

He leaned in and kissed Sam softly on his warm neck, just above his plaid collar. It was just a small gesture, but since kids were filtering by them on their way in and out of the crowded lunch room, teachers were quick to call them out, and their friends had noticed they didn't really get their PDA on at school, it still seemed like a big deal.

Losing himself a little, Kurt tipped his mouth up further, kissing the side of Sam's throat. He could feel how freshly-shaven Sam was and smell cheap but sweet aftershave, alluringly boyish. Sam held himself still, but heat was rising in his skin as Kurt dropped a final kiss just underneath his ear lobe, lips catching a curl of hair while they were at it.

He pulled back and watched, deeply satisfied, as Sam's sandy blond lashes dipped and lifted again in a few hazy blinks, his attention returning extremely obviously to Kurt's face right there next to his own, red patches in his cheeks. For a second he looked as if he wanted to say something, then clenched his jaw and let out another deep sigh, fingers flexing around Kurt's in a return squeeze.

"Wanna get in the salad bar line with me?" Kurt asked him softly.

After a flustered second, Sam nodded, and let Kurt lead him by the hand into the bustling cafeteria.

 

*

 

That night, it was with a particular bee in his bonnet that Kurt flopped onto his belly and speed-dialed Sam. It was only a quarter after nine, and Sam's break wasn't for another thirty minutes, but Kurt's brain was working ahead.

He'd had a productive evening, as he'd managed to talk Tina into taking in the netting on the fascinator she was determined to wear to prom so as to reduce the bridal look she feared it had going on. In his opinion, it had more of a mourning veil look, but the netting was definitely too long either way. It had taken several days to convince her she needed to change it up, not find a new dress, but she'd finally come around.

So after a brief meet-up with Blaine at the Lima Bean, he'd taken a little trip to the craft store to get some back-up supplies (not to mention some special supplies for something else entirely) in the event of an emergency or stroke of fashion genius. Then the two of them had spent a good two hours dismantling, snipping, stitching, and gluing it with the precision of a team of brain surgeons, with Kurt swearing he would chip in to replace it if it turned out to be a disaster.

While they carefully worked, they talked all things prom. Somehow, it had gotten around to Tina's eager ears that Rachel had asked Sam to prom and that Sam had turned her down. She, of course, wanted to know why, but seemed to accept the excuse that Sam simply had prior plans.

"Well, if you're not going to go to prom with Sam, you should just go stag!" Tina tried to tell him.

"No, oh my God. How embarrassing," said Kurt automatically. "Nobody would even dance with me."

"I would. Rachel would."

"Tina, if you didn't have a boyfriend and people were telling you to just go to prom by yourself and just take sad waltzes around the room with Rachel, would you be like, 'Gosh, sign me up! I can't wait for all these people who hate me to see I'm the weird kid who doesn't fit in!' I mean – sorry, but it's different for girls. Girls can dance with each other and it doesn't mean anything. No guy is going to dance with me, and that makes the prospect of a dance way less fun."

"Finn might dance with you, like at the wedding," said Tina.

"Yeah, I kinda doubt it," said Kurt, carefully slipping his needle through delicate netting. "That wasn't in front of the whole homophobic school. And seeing as his Domme is up for prom queen and kinda nuts and totally resents me..."

"Okay, then why don't you just bring someone you can dance with? Like Blaine?"

Kurt had paused only for a beat before refocusing sharply on his work. That was a terrible idea. He and Blaine had spent their get-together just trying to flippantly act normal; in Blaine pointing out that it was a bit warm for Kurt to be wearing a scarf, they'd discussed _the weather_ for ten semi-painful minutes. But also it made perfect sense, and that made it somewhat difficult to actually refute.

"He's, um... not my type," he tried to say; Sam's sheepish words in his mouth.

"You don't have to date him," Tina laughed. "You can just take him as a friend. That way you'll have a guy to dance with and you won't be missing out on one of the two proms you're ever going to have in your entire life! I'm sure Sam wouldn't want you to miss out just because he can't go. And he's met Blaine, right?"

"Uh, yes," said Kurt. "Yes. They've met a couple of times."

"So it's not like you'd be going with some stranger he's never met. I know you really want to go, Kurt! I don't know why you won't admit it."

"Scissors, please, nurse."

Tina had dutifully handed him his small gold embroidery scissors, and the prom gab got put on pause as Kurt fussed and arranged the netting. When she tried the revamped fascinator on to see where the netting fell, it looked awesome. She was pleased, and Kurt was pretty satisfied, himself, and crossed his arms as he watched her pose and bat her eyelashes at herself in her mirror.

Whether or not he would be going to prom was certainly debatable, but at least Tina would look amazing and have a nice night with her sub. How simple it was for her – and most people who wanted it – to have a romantic relationship with her submissive. She was lucky.

He drove home again thinking about Sam, and a little about Blaine.

Maybe, he thought, if things weren't awkward between him and Blaine, taking him to prom as a friend would actually be fun. Even if they were literally the only gay couple there, they'd still be a pair of Doms, and if they weren't in competition, that was a powerful statement.

But now that he knew that Blaine felt responsive to him on a submissive level – though they were both currently acting like he'd never said such a thing – Kurt didn't know if it was wise. He wondered what Sam would think if he did take Blaine to prom... he wondered if his sub's sense of self-esteem, which Kurt had been working diligently to bolster, would plunge and he'd think it was only a matter of time before Kurt transferred his attentions to Blaine as Quinn had transferred hers to Finn.

Well. That wasn't going to happen any more than Rachel was going to get her controlling hands on Sam. Really, Kurt felt no great yearning for anything more simple and straightforward. It was just another way in which he stood out from the rabble. Or maybe he just adored his sub so much already that he was just honestly completely happy to have him to the extent he did. Whatever the reason, Kurt just knew that even without the prom accoutrements and the sparkle of romance and the certainty that he was what Sam was attracted to, there was no comparing. He had the better deal. He didn't need to go with Sam to prom or make out with him to know that their relationship was still valid and meaningful, just like he honestly didn't need Sam to serve him sexually to get something out of being his Dom. He knew that Sam still had strong feelings and wanted to belong to him.

Up in his room again, Kurt unfolded the note Sam had given him and gazed at it. He'd basically memorized it, he'd re-read it so many times, but he still liked to experience it all over again. It never failed to make his heart beat a little harder. As much as he loved the sentiments the note expressed, he loved even more that Sam had made the effort in the first place. He loved that Sam had tried to express himself, and even loved that Sam had seemed nervous to hand him something like this.

 _I belong to you_ , Sam had written, because he'd needed to, wanted to, and not because he'd been instructed to. He wrote in a scrawled print, but his y looped on the bottom like a cursive y. Kurt liked admiring and pondering each pen stroke, knowing Sam had deliberately picked every word out on his own. _Im your sub, I was shown my place and Im grateful. Im so lucky you showed me how much I am your sub... Please let your sub service you_...

Sam answered his phone with a curious, "Kurt?"

The first thing past Kurt's lips was, "Where are you right now?"

"Out on delivery – Glenwood Avenue. I pulled over when I saw it was you."

"Your break is still 9:45, right?" Kurt asked.

"Yes?"

"I wanna see you," Kurt told him. "Tonight."

"I –" started Sam, clearly surprised. "I could – try to make it over there –"

"You usually just chill in your van when you're on break, right?"

"Yeah, usually, or just sit outside."

"Perfect. I'm going to drive over."

"Now??"

"At 9:45. When your break starts, I'll be in the parking lot of Nice Slice, waiting for you."

"... 'Kay," Sam managed.

Kurt bit down on his smirk. He would've loved to know what Sam's expression was at that moment – he sounded pretty confused. He reveled in the glorious feel of taking his sub's attentions, of lathering him up, and knew he could do one better.

"I hope you're licking those lips of yours, sweetie. Do you know what you're going to get to do?"

Sam's receiver picked up a breath and brought it to Kurt's ear laced with static. Kurt waited, and finally Sam let out a guarded, "Um. No, what?"

"You know what you're going to get to do," Kurt chided playfully. "See you at 9:45."

"... See you," Sam echoed, and Kurt ended the call with a thrill in his gut, then tossed his phone aside and rolled off the bed for a wardrobe change. He needed to dress to impress.

Pointless, maybe – especially because Sam didn't really pay attention to clothes, and he was only seeing Sam for a mere fifteen minutes anyway – but Kurt just merrily pleased himself, unbuttoning his vest and sliding off the jeans he'd worn to school.

He knew what he wanted to wear without having to think about it: his sleek black Underground pants. The outside hem of each leg was lined from hip to ankle with an onslaught of decorative safety pins. He usually saved these babies for special occasions, as wearing them to school would be a fantastic way to get him expelled. He'd last worn them to Rachel's party, the night Sam had broken down into tears over Quinn and let Kurt take him home. He didn't flatter himself that Sam would remember what he was wearing that night, or anything. Everyone but him and Finn had been drunk, drunk, drunk, and he didn't even know if Sam would notice he'd changed clothes. These were just definitely the trousers that spoke to his mood.

Such a statement piece he typically wore with shoes that wouldn't detract from the presentation, but tonight Kurt paired the pants with his over-the-top studded combat boots, which were hardcore, classic Dom. He was wearing enough studs and pins to set off a metal detector from thirty feet away.

Into his pants, he tucked a black and white checkered shirt, and over that, he pulled on his bondage harness, which crossed over his chest like an X. It was just a fun accessory – a wink at the stereotypical bondage look, really – but Figgins didn't care for it any more than he cared for a student wearing hundreds of sharp little pins on his legs, so he hardly ever got to wear it. With his sleeves rolled up a few times and the nicely starched checkered cuffs snug to his forearms, his shirt gave his whole look a pop of classic prep, somewhere between hoity-toity and cool, distracting from the overwhelming subculture vibe of the other pieces.

Still, his boots made quite an impact on the stairs as he hopped down them.

"Hey! Where you goin', Sid Vicious?" his dad asked him from the kitchen table, where he had paperwork and bills laid out.

"Oh, you know, to inspire the nation's youth into anarchy," said Kurt, sailing past him towards the garage.

"Okay, but really."

"Nice Slice."

"I'm gonna stick with the anarchy answer," said his dad, returning his attention to whatever he was writing. "I haven't had real pizza in eight months."

"Don't worry, I'm not having pizza without you," Kurt assured him. "I'm just meeting up with my sub."

"Nope. I distinctly heard something about anarchy."

Amused at his dad's determined expression, Kurt said, "Back in thirty minutes."

"Careful out there, bud."

 

*

 

Nice Slice, which was in the corner of a small strip mall that had mostly already closed shop, was nearly empty but still brightly lit. Only a couple of cars were in its tiny parking lot. The yellow Nice Slice logo, painted in the window of the little shop years ago, looked like a happy-faced Pac-Man rip-off about to eat a slice of pepperoni pizza that could have fit into his mouth and made him a whole circle. Inside, a couple of employees in canary yellow shirts were bustling around behind the counter, putting together pizza boxes.

As was the case with many of his ensembles, Kurt was over-dressed for his destination.

And he was a few minutes early. But Sam's family's van was in the lot, sitting in a parking spot in a row set back from the storefront with a Nice Slice sign stuck to its roof, so he knew Sam was there. He pulled up next to it, then simply turned his car off, climbed out, leaned himself against the door, and waited, peering at the storefront patiently.

Just standing there, listening to his engine settle and waiting for his sub, the energy that had been propelling Kurt forward had no place to go, and it gathered in his gut. His dick flushed against the front of his snug pants. He slid his hands into his pockets casually, took a deep breath, and tilted his chin up, not trying to push away his excitement, but trying to look calm, at least.

A jingle bell on the door rang audibly when Sam emerged, wearing the same yellow polo as the other employees. It was tucked into his jeans, but looked a size too big for him. He eagerly took off a white visor with the smiley yellow logo on the front and ran a hand through his dented locks. Whether he was mussing them up or trying to neaten them, Kurt couldn't tell. Sam's mouth pressed into a crooked line of concentration as he looked around parking lot. When he spotted Kurt, Kurt rewarded him with a pleased smirk.

"There's my hard worker," he called out. "Right on time."

Sam clutched his visor in both hands, holding it in front of him as he quickly scooted the short but sweet distance over to Kurt with an anxious tension in his shoulders.

"Hi," he breathed, voice caught high and soft in his throat.

"Come here," said Kurt with a coaxing tilt of his head, drawing an obedient Sam in a few more steps. His gaze roamed down Sam's body, lingering over the ring of his visor and the grip of his fingers around it. There was definitely something Sam was trying to cover up, clutching it like that. He remembered Sam talking once about how he didn't want his manager to see him exactly as he was right then, tent pitched. What a cutie.

Catching at his lower lip with one canine, Kurt commented, "You're _all_ ready to be good for me."

Kurt could hear his sub's sharp intake of breath.

"In your van," Kurt added, before Sam could think Kurt wanted him to drop to his knees right in the parking lot.

Fumbling, Sam dropped his keys. Kurt waited with a patience he only ever really had when he was waiting for Sam to manage something while Sam ducked and snatched them up again, then clumsily unlocked the sliding door.

Kurt had a brief flashback to climbing into the back of the van on Easter Sunday: seating himself behind Sam's dad; Stevie and Stacey and their Easter baskets on the bench seat in back; Sam telling Stacey that Kurt was his Dom. That morning the van was full of light, church-bound, tidy. Tonight, it was dark, and two full laundry hampers were stacked in the seat behind the driver's, their dull plastic frames lit with a dim ceiling light.

"All the way back," Sam said. As Kurt slid himself between the middle seats, Sam climbed in after him, shutting the door with a noisy roll and clunk.

In the back, a woman's suit jacket and pants were hanging on a hook over the window in a plastic garment cover from the cleaner's. A lidded cardboard file box was sitting on the seat on top of some manila folders, and a little pink denim jacket Kurt suspected belonged to Stacey was forgotten in the corner, its sleeve hanging off the bench seat. The small trunk space behind the seat was crammed full of more boxes and stuff Kurt didn't care to stop and try to identify. The stuff cluttered the back window.

"Sorry it's a mess," Sam grunted. He reached past Kurt's hip to shove the file box aside for him.

"Nah, it's cozy," said Kurt, who pulled his phone from his back pocket, then turned and slid himself onto the bench seat. He found that Sam was on his knees between the middle seats, one hand planted on the floor and the other against an arm rest, cuffs fully on display. He was staring at Kurt with big, hopeful eyes.

Intensity washed over Kurt. Abandoning his phone on the bench beside him, he leaned back and unfastened his trousers.

"Kurt," Sam uttered, crawling awkwardly towards him. His little waist just fit between the seats, but his wide shoulders had him twisting to try and slide between them. Kurt managed to open his knees a bit, each one striking a seat in front of him, and reached out, fisting the placket of buttons on Sam's cheery yellow polo. He didn't even need to pull at him for Sam to arch over his lap, settling between his knees.

The ceiling light went off again, leaving the light of the moon and Nice Slice's sign trying to find its way in.

"You've been waiting patiently, huh?" Kurt asked.

"Yes," Sam breathed.

"I know. What a good boy. So patient."

Kurt smiled hazily, enjoying the warmth of Sam's arms on his thighs and hands gingerly grasping his hips as Sam got himself as close as possible, leaning right in between his legs. Sam's broad upper half was heavily sandwiched on Kurt's lower half, making it virtually impossible for Sam not to have a hundred safety pins lining his forearms and for Kurt not to stroke those bare, warm arms, sliding all the way from shirt collar to wrist collar and up again.

"Kurt, please," Sam begged softly, a plaintive note in his voice. His hands moved and gripped at the open fly of Kurt's trousers, fisting each side of the open zip. "Please let me. Please."

"You have about thirteen minutes, don't you," Kurt lilted, grappling for his phone, "to service me before you have to go back to work. I'll set my alarm for ten..."

Sam sighed roughly, heated fingers fighting past the tucks of Kurt's checkered shirt and into the y-front of his boxers, whispering, "Thank you. Thank you so much, Kurt!"

There was that earnest gratitude Kurt had envisioned.

Arousal pushing his dick to full mast, he flexed on the bench seat as Sam's fingers curled around him, pulling him out and stroking him there in the dark back seat, feeling him growing stiffer. His precious face was gently lit by the nearby screen of Kurt's phone, an unnatural bluish-white glow that let Kurt admire his sucker punched expression and heavy eyelids and curvy pink mouth opening. The light shone on the inside of Sam's fat lower lip as he slipped the head of Kurt's dick right in for a suck, applying sudden moist heat that tugged gently at his knob.

Kurt moaned freely, not even trying to stay at attention for anything other than Sam's mouth. It felt safe in the small space, with Sam's mom's pantsuit blocking an entire window and laundry towering, crowding them. No one was likely to pull up to Nice Slice at ten o'clock on a Monday night and park next to a van when it wasn't even near the door. No one had any reason suspect a delivery boy was servicing his Dom in the back. He didn't have to be vigilant about privacy or about time; the alarm was set. All he had to do was let Sam suck him off for ten straight minutes.

As though they had all the time in the world, Sam's soft, puffy lips pulled and roamed slowly, almost carefully over his cock, sliding up one side then over the crown and down again. His hot exhales traced Kurt's shaft like ghost touches. The tip of his nose brushed along, friendly. But he wasn't just nuzzling. His pretty lips caught lightly around the crown in a ring, letting him in and out again in a light dip that would've felt teasing if Sam wasn't so obviously beyond it and didn't follow it with another tender suck.

Kurt – who was used to Sam going after him with a desperate gusto, like there was always a timer he was racing against – hummed under his breath, surprised by the dreamy touch but by no means displeased. Sam let out a huff against Kurt's stomach, and it seemed like a direct response, like Sam was replying to the inarticulate noise with one of his own. His index finger and thumb braced Kurt's hard-on firmly as his mouth came off the knob with a soft pop, then sank right back over it, jaw stretching, so temptingly hot inside.

"God, you're such a sweet boy," sighed Kurt, heat creeping into his face steadily. "You wanna feel that pushing your mouth open, don't you..."

Sam's breath tripped, then he grunted back around Kurt's cock, voice just a high-pitched catch in his throat.

"I know," Kurt muttered, fingertips scritching over the back of Sam's sweaty neck. "You've been so good for me, Sam. So obedient. You waited and waited. Now you get to have it. Does it feel good?"

The scrap of voice squeaked, and Sam let out a huge gust of air through his nose, sliding Kurt deeper into the wet heaven of his mouth, tongue cushy and hot and slick with saliva against the back of his shaft. It stroked him, made him moan under his breath as Sam dazedly locked himself into a rhythm, lips greedy and wanting to feel every last inch of him sliding past them and going slow in order to do so, savoring. He swept Kurt up into the hypnotic deliberation of it, the deliciousness of every last up and down, getting him so lulled that when Sam's head tilted and his lips hit the brace of his fingers, Kurt gasped at the change.

"Oh – Sam –"

His shaft alone was pulled out of his underwear and trousers, but Kurt felt utterly buried in Sam's mouth. Sam's grip was part of the all-encompassing heat, but Sam capably held him in there, tongue pushed flat, for an extra beat before making his way all the way up again. The gentle tug of his sub's lips all the way back to the tip made him feel huger than he was, long, and Sam's tongue knowingly gave it a soft, hot tease of a swirl. Sam was so good at this. It didn't even seem fair. It gave his sub so much power over him, really. Sam had him babbling under his breath.

"Sam. Honey. God."

Just when Sam seemed like he might be on the verge of picking up the pace, Kurt's alarm went off, marimba chimes interrupting the cacophony of their breaths and the wet slurp of Sam's mouth around his dick.

" _Uh_ ," Kurt let out, attentions splitting.

He was tense, in the thick of heat like a glowing ember kept steadily stoked, completely hard. Falling under the spell of Sam's slow pace had kept him totally mired and simmering. Ten minutes seemed like nothing, and had been nothing much, but Sam had managed to make it seem like it could and would go on forever. How rude for time to suddenly gain its own meaning.

The alarm looped insistently, playing again. And then again. And again. The cue to stop kept coming, but Sam acted like he didn't even hear the perky digital tones.

Kurt tried to center himself. It was the most enormously tempting feeling in the world to just silence the damn alarm and make Sam carry on, service him till he got his prize. Who was he kidding – he wouldn't have to make Sam do anything. He would graciously allow it. And he would totally blow it soon if Sam came on any stronger.

"Time's up, sweetie," he managed, his crazy controlling patience kicking in. After all, he didn't want Sam to get fired, or something. And truthfully, some part of him enjoyed exercising his authority over his sub, even if it meant stopping and denying his own hopeful body.

"Mmhh," Sam let out around his shaft, just a reply that felt as good as it sounded. Kurt didn't have to hear that to determine that Sam was confused, almost – lost in what he was doing.

"That's enough," Kurt panted, rubbing his shoulder with one hand and dismissing the alarm with the other. "You have to go back to work now."

In the absence of the irritatingly chipper marimba, the noise of Sam's mouth sliding off him was downright juicy, especially when Sam was up and sucked for breath through his wet lips. The air in the van, stifling with their body heat and damp with Sam's panting, was still cooler than Sam's mouth, and Kurt twitched in his hand, so hard, and covered with a light sheen of his sub's precome-thickened saliva.

"That's a good boy," he groaned, hands cupping Sam's shoulders, neck, jaw. "Such a good boy, Sam."

"Din' make you come," Sam whuffled, the innocent pitch of his protest making Kurt feel even more like he was the center of the world.

"Hm-mm," he acknowledged sympathetically. "But your break's over."

After a dizzy pause, Sam's head dropped to his hip. Kurt could feel disappointment hitting him hard as his subby pleasure receded and reality barged in.

"'M so sorry."

"I'm not," Kurt replied, squeezing at Sam's shoulders hunched in his lap. He let his fingers slide into Sam's hair with supreme indulgence – let them curl into fists and tug at Sam's hair gently. "I'm not sorry at all. I loved having my sub come service me on his break."

Tensing under Kurt's hands, Sam clutched at him and moaned. It was muffled, but Kurt distinctly heard, "Me too."

"Mm-hm! I know you wish I'd let you keep going. But you better skedaddle," said Kurt, letting his handful go and trying to be gentle about it as he took his cock from Sam, squirmed, and stuffed it back in his underwear with Sam's head still in his lap. "You have pizzas to deliver."

"OhmyGod," Sam huffed, as if he hadn't realized what was waiting for him on the other side of his break. Maybe he really hadn't thought about anything else beyond the simple fact that he was going to be allowed to service his Dom, finally. "'M so hard."

"Aw, cutie," said Kurt cruelly. "Sorry. You'll just have to go back to work like that."

"I can't," Sam whispered.

"No?"

After a pause, Sam said, "No, I can..."

"Do you need to maybe sneak to the bathroom and jerk off?"

"No, 's – not that bad, I can handle it," Sam panted, and pushed himself back. Kurt could see that his sub had barely fit himself between the middle seats, crammed himself up into Kurt's lap in an awkwardly tiny space. He'd knelt there for almost fifteen minutes, focused on servicing and not on what had to be uncomfortable. His long arms bumped the back of the seats, clumsy.

Moving and looking like a person who was only half awake, with his hair profoundly rumpled, Sam balanced on his knees and tried his best to adjust himself in his jeans with his belt still buckled and his shirt tucked in.

"What if your boss sees you like that?" Kurt asked, somewhere between perverse teasing and seriously wondering.

Looking down at himself, Sam just blinked uncertainly.

"Climb on out," Kurt instructed.

He tucked his shirt back in and managed to fasten his pants as Sam leaned over and groped for his white visor, then obediently popped the door handle, sliding it open and shuffling his way out dizzily. His lurching made Kurt feel relatively smooth and light of foot as he followed, though Sam seemed with it enough to offer him a supportive arm.

"Why, thank you, sweetie," Kurt said, as his boots hit asphalt one by one. Sam let out a soft helpless noise.

Taking stock of the situation in the parking lot's light, Kurt shut the heavy van door behind him. Sam's jeans and tucked in shirt were not doing him any favors. He was trying to smooth down his hair – sort of.

"Maybe you should tie a jacket around your waist, cutie-pie," he said with a smile, taking Sam's visor from him and popping it onto his head. Sam allowed him to ease the hat into a cute tilt that pushed his rumpled bleach-blond hair down again. Kurt slid fingers just under it to push strands of hair back behind his sub's feverishly flushed ears, admiring his whole state. His curvy lips were red, too, his mouth so obviously freshly used.

Kurt knew he himself wasn't any less red or glazed or boned in his pants, but he also knew Sam's headspace was fundamentally different than his at that very moment. Even if Sam wasn't so totally out of it that he'd reached that distant, heavy state of near uselessness that Kurt thought of as his subspace, he appeared primed for the disconnect, sort of foggy and out of sync.

Feeling simultaneously protective and aroused by the notion, Kurt clasped Sam's hot cheeks, rubbing them soothingly with his thumbs, and murmured, "You're so perfect. That was perfect."

Sam just looked down that slight inch or so at him, searching his face with some lack of understanding. His eyes widened a little as he realized Kurt was praising him, his gaze steadying. Kurt could practically see his spirits lifting.

"Aren't I a lucky Dom?" he persisted, arching a brow. "To have such a hot guy servicing me anytime I want?"

"Please – I wanna," Sam whispered.

"I look forward to an encore," Kurt told him, smoothing his yellow lapels. He felt and heard the answering breath, Sam's shoulders and chest sinking gently.

Frankly, he was still so damn horny that it was hard to not step in closer to Sam and feel that hot, firm body up against his and just hump him right there in the parking lot. He need to be careful, or he really would get carried away. He looped his arms around Sam's neck gently.

"Can you take a minute inside? Wash up? Splash some water on your face? Have a drink?"

Sam nodded.

"Yeah?" Kurt asked, pleasure swirling in him just from Sam's proximity and response. "Will you have a drink for me?" When Sam nodded again, Kurt asked, "What will you drink?"

"Water," said Sam.

"Good. Or you can have a soda, if you want. Whatever will feel nice."

He watched Sam's brow pull, the expression only a tiny flicker of wonder.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Kurt murmured. "And you'll see me. Are you excited to come to my house and spend some time in my room?"

Eyelids taking a heavy dip, Sam nodded quickly.

"I am, too," said Kurt. He let Sam go, but his fingertips trailed across Sam's broad shoulders, tweaked and tidied how the shirt sat on them, smoothed his sleeves, and rustled the light hair on his arms until he reached Sam's wrists. He wrapped his hands around the cuffs firmly, signaling a demand for attention, and on a dominating whim said, "I want you to wear one of your jock straps. If it's too much to wear one at school, don't worry. You can just bring one with you to wear at my house. Can you do that?"

"Yes," breathed Sam.

"Good boy." Kurt pressed a smooch to one warm, round cheek. "Better get back, now. I don't want to make you late. See you at school."

"'Kay," said Sam dimly, moving away. Kurt watched him trudge in his Converse and cocked visor back towards Nice Slice, and could tell he was moving on autopilot, in some tipsy twilight state. Before he got too far, though, he craned and looked back at Kurt over his shoulder. His eyes skipped quickly up from Kurt's boots to his face, taking him in as though taking a final hit – one for the road. He added wistfully, "Bye."

Kurt, who had the freedom to go take care of the boner in his pants, smirked at him. "Bye, birthday boy."

 

*

 

Tuesday was a dewy day, cool and cloudy in the morning and warming after lunch when the sun started to peek from between the clouds. Kurt could feel a hint of the summer to come in the dappled sunlight.

The hours shivered by in excitable spurts, but time slowed down whenever he saw Sam, who was wearing the little blue hooded shirt with yellow stripes on its sleeves that Kurt had so thoroughly enjoyed watching get soaked with come in the soft room. Sam always managed to look like he was wandering the halls in a reverie that broke when he saw Kurt – he smiled, lit up, and came over to him like a puppy eager for a scratch behind the ear. Kurt was pleased that he didn't seem any more distracted than usual after last night. In fact, Sam seemed pretty in the moment, for Sam. But then, it was a special day.

To everybody else, it was a normal, boring Tuesday that was plodding on as per usual; the rest of the school was sadly ignorant of the fact that this was the day, seventeen years prior, that this beautiful boy had come into the world, born to be his submissive.

Okay, that was obviously not the way it worked, but Kurt couldn't help thinking of it with a particularly rosy tint.

He had been almost a year old when Sam was born, and blissfully unaware of the fact that somewhere in Tennessee there was something important happening... unaware that he was different... unaware of everything, basically. It honestly seemed like there had never been a time that Kurt hadn't been painfully aware, but back then, he was just a chubby bundle of drool with mindless interest Fisher Price toys, just like every other one-year-old in the world. Kurt wouldn't put together the meaning of all the various little things that felt natural and instinctive for him till he was eight. When he had, he'd kept it to himself for a difficult, lonely stretch of years.

On the other hand, Kurt had been dominant since he was little, and that manifested itself quickly. Before he even really had a concept of domination or gender roles or any kind of understanding that wanting to play car wash with the boy next door could even mean something other than just wanting to play car wash with the boy next door, he'd been acting Dom in most of his short-lived friendships.

As a child, he'd had a hungry imagination and a gift for feeding it with elaborate games of pretend, but also a need to do things his own way, because his way was just better. It was always the smoothest sailing when he got to steer the ship. Some of his earliest hags had really liked his structured ideas and penchant for any kind of scenario involving dress-up. But he'd also alienated many a classmate by trying to tell other kids what to do and how and when. He was a stickler for detail and took those details seriously.

That had mostly been before his mom had died, though. Before the hospital was a time he knew was happy, but seemed sad in his memories. He remembered being at the library in the summertime, holding her hand inside, but carrying out a big stack of books outside into the July heat. He remembered hiding between skirts in her closet, touching soft fabrics, arranging her shoes by color; how she kept her dresser top neat with delicate barrettes and jewelry and her perfume bottle; putting on her silk scarves and sunglasses. She'd always understood him and known what to do with him in a way his dad was still trying to figure out, bless him; she'd never had a problem with him curiously getting into her stuff because she knew he would put it all back exactly where it belonged, unharmed.

Kurt barely remembered playing with other children after she passed. He must have... he knew he did. He was in school. He knew he had gone to birthday parties, had birthday parties (at Lima Lanes, no less). Organizing his own birthday fêtes was half of the reason to even have a birthday. He must have also tagged, climbed on jungle gyms, built things with blocks, had playmates. He didn't love to think about it.

The most outstanding, vivid memory of his entire childhood, due to repeated recreation, was a telling one. Kurt had a large number of games revolving around his Tickle Me Elmo. Whether cast as friend, sidekick, hero, or villain, Kurt made poor Elmo beg for mercy while tickling his batteries right out, devising scenarios and reasons for punishing Elmo for his laughing and shaking and making him laugh anyway. Even if Elmo was simply programmed to respond to poking and prodding and pressure, Kurt still loved getting a response.

Judging by the insane success of Tickle Me Elmo, Kurt probably wasn't the only kid who had gotten hours of entertainment out of it. But he hadn't known what that enjoyment truly meant until much later.

To his memory, the only thing he'd ever heard in his youth about Doms and subs was something akin to, "You'll be one or the other, and you'll know which when you grow up." It seemed about as basic, distant, eventual, and yet ephemeral as the ideas of falling in love, going to college, getting a job. But he'd kept to himself after his mom passed, and when middle school arrived, was already an increasingly unconfident, closeted loner who was afraid of what his own dad would think of him, let alone other kids. He'd never met another gay kid, so romance seemed as far-off as ever, and it didn't matter if he was a Dom when he needed to pretend to be in love with Rachel Berry to get by.

But oh, how times had changed.

He wondered what Sam had been like when he was little. Maybe he'd been quiet and helpful, like Stevie, or an excitable bundle of curiosity with a fickle attention span like Stacey. Kurt could sort of see both of them in his sub, in shades.

"I hope you know I planned out exactly how I wanted to decorate your locker," Kurt said after school, contentedly watching Sam load up his backpack. They only had to get through glee, and then he could take Sam home with him.

"You were gonna decorate my locker?" asked Sam, grinning. "Like the Cheerios do for football players?"

"Mm-hm, with balloons and confetti cannons and a cue for the jazz band to materialize playing 'Sixteen Going On Seventeen' from _The Sound of Music_ ," replied Kurt, only slightly exaggerating. "But I figured you'd just about die of embarrassment at such overt PDA."

"No," Sam laughed, and shook his head sheepishly. "I get that locker decorating is, like, a thing here. But, uh, I'm kinda glad all my stuff's not covered in confetti. You know how you keep finding tinsel hanging around months after Christmas?"

"Yes, it is a little messy," Kurt acknowledged. A corner of a worksheet was sticking out of one of Sam's folders. He reached over and tucked the rogue paper in so it wouldn't get bent up in Sam's backpack. "However, fair warning – I can't promise my entire bedroom isn't full of balloons and confetti."

"As long as the jazz band isn't there."

"Oh? Do we need privacy for some reason?" Kurt teased.

"We don't really need it, I guess," said Sam, smiling into his locker. "I can be your sub in front of them."

"Goodness," said Kurt lightly, a slow blush warming his neck. Of course, Sam was his sub at all times. He was claimed, collared. It wasn't a secret and never had been. No matter what he was doing or who was around, Sam submitted to him. But he'd noticed that Sam often still professed a desire to be his sub anyway. For a little while Kurt had thought he needed reassurance, but the way Sam still asked for it... it was beginning to sound like it meant something more to him.

"But I guess we have glee," Sam said with a dramatic sigh. He shut his locker and offered Kurt his arm, biting down on a wonky smile.

Kurt took it, excitement simmering low in his gut.

Together, they walked down to the choir room, with Becky's distinctive voice calling, "Extra, extra!" around the corner.

She'd already foisted off a copy of some school newspaper Kurt had never heard of on him in chemistry, and he'd taken it just to try and mollify her and skimmed the front page. Newspapers were so 90s, he couldn't even. He had no desire to read badly-written articles about Coach Sylvester's latest plan for renovating the gymnasium or depressing interviews with teachers who were just hanging on till retirement. If it didn't have a big fat birthday announcement for Sam in it, it wasn't within his scope of interests that day.

As they passed her, Becky pushed a paper into Sam's hand, but after a glance, he dumped it into the nearest recycling bin, apparently no more interested than Kurt.

The choir room was mostly full, and everyone already sitting in the familiar red plastic chairs, waiting around for the bell to ring, save for Puck standing by Lauren Zizes, trying to get and keep her attention. At this point, Kurt was sure that Zizes totally got her Domme jollies from endless teasing, stringing Puck along with a mixture of promises and insults, but Puck was certainly bound and determined. Brittany sat in the back row, doodling in a little notepad with one of her kooshball pens. Mike and Tina were getting in some kissing before the bell.

"Pick our seats," Kurt instructed, in a soft voice just for Sam.

"By Mercedes?" suggested Sam.

"Ah, nice choice," said Kurt, who suspected it was purposefully made in deference to him. It was sweet Sam seemed to care about him having friends as much as Kurt cared about Sam having friends. Kurt climbed into the middle row and pushed his messenger bag under the chair next to his friend, who was slouched in her seat with her hands in her jacket pockets. "Hi, Mercedes!"

"Hey, you two."

Next to him, Sam managed to get Artie to give him a casual high-five.

"Love that necklace and jacket combo," said Kurt, who always loved it when Mercedes wore black. It was, of course, slimming and universally flattering, but it also made her look more classy and mature than some of her more funky and bold neon outfits did. Her necklace looked like a sparkly chain, its chunkiness making it cool but its sparkliness really glamming up the whole look even though he knew it had to come from Forever 21 or Claire's. She really was the closest thing he had to a peer at this school, fashion-wise.

She sat up straighter, pleased. "Thanks!"

On the other side of Mercedes, Quinn sat with a notebook perched on her lap and a frown on her face, writing thoughtfully and paying them no mind. Kurt turned a happy smile onto Sam, who was hooking his backpack's straps to his chair. It was because of Sam that Mercedes had gotten over whatever problem she'd had with him, and now he wasn't even fielding constant angry side-eyes from Quinn. Getting them all to go bowling had proven to be a perfect way to melt the ice, even if that did involve Kurt throwing some frames.

With one hand, Sam scooted his chair over till it bumped right into Kurt's, reminding Kurt for a split second of the way he'd pushed the box over in the back of the van last night, on his hands and knees to crawl to Kurt, looking at him with unshuttered eyes full of longing. He knew that Sam would collapse next to him and put an arm around the back of his seat, which was still the height of PDA for them when it came to glee.

Instead, Sam came around the front of the chair and tentatively wedged himself onto Kurt's lap.

"Oof!" Kurt let out, not just because of Sam's weight but because it put an unfamiliar, unexpected knife right in his chest. No – it was more red-hot and tight, like something was grabbing his heart, wrenching it.

Next to them, Mercedes snorted.

"Sam, you look like a big ventriloquist's dummy."

Sam actually laughed. "What?"

It took Kurt a second to cope with the fact that his face was buzzing, his ears ringing with surprise. Sam had simply taken one knee, like one of his little siblings would – issued himself his own invitation with the same kind of trustful ease. It was totally out of the blue for his sub to do something like this.

As if Sam was in danger of immediately falling off him again, he clutched at Sam around the middle and around his long thighs, feeling awkward. He wasn't even used to having kids on his lap, like Sam, let alone a tall, muscular football player.

"See," Puck said loudly, pointing right at them. "Hummel knows what's up! He can tell you!"

"Dream on, Puckerman," Zizes replied calmly.

"Baby, it's just lap action! You can't get pregnant, I promise."

"I'll have you over my knee when I'm good and ready."

"Ugh," Quinn let out, shooting one of her butthurt side-eyes Pizes-ward.

"Hot," commented Brittany.

Sam, solid and muscular and too big for his lap, cupped his hand to Kurt's ear and whispered, "So Mr. Schue sees!"

Trying to forcibly bite down on the incandescent explosion happening internally, Kurt nodded at his guileless sub, teeth digging into his smile. He didn't want to make it obvious to the room that Sam had never sat on his lap before. Mostly, he didn't want to give Sam any reason to go back to feeling like he shouldn't touch him or indulge in any public displays of his own accord, but also, he wasn't ready to make people (Quinn in particular) think he and Sam were any more abnormal than they already thought. He needed to act like this kind of casual display happened every day...

"So, what's new, Mercedes?" he asked.

Probably totally reading Kurt's discomfited face, Mercedes eyed him.

"Well, have you seen the _Muckraker_?"

"Becky's pretty much wallpapering the school with it."

On his lap, Sam's weight shifted; he was leaning back, reaching for Mike for some reason Kurt couldn't sense, casual as could be.

"Some pretty interesting stuff in there between all the boring crap," said Mercedes. "Somebody on the staff definitely watches _Fondue For Two_."

"Me," piped Brittany from behind Kurt. "I watch _Fondue For Two_."

"You make _Fondue For Two_ ," Mercedes shot back.

"Yes, and I am also a loyal viewer," said Brittany.

That was when Finn's voice rang loudly from the doorway.

"What the hell is this, dude?"

He looked extremely tall and upset, and sounded like he might be close to kicking a chair. There was a copy of the _Muckraker_ in his hand.

"'Which blondie former cheerleader is having a secret moonlight motel rendezvous –'"

Kurt felt Sam's body stiffen, his spine jerking to uncomfortable attention.

"Where does it –" his sub tried to interrupt, slipping off Kurt's lap.

"' – with another big-lipped blondie??'" Finn plowed right over him, bringing the newspaper right to Sam's face.

"Where does it say that?"

"Right on the front page of the school newspaper!" Finn snapped.

Kurt stared at Finn, and then at the paper Sam was peering at, in confusion. He'd read the front page. How could he have skimmed past something like that? Surely there was some kind of misunderstanding. Sam's lips moved vaguely as he found what Finn had quoted, and Quinn attempted to intervene, pulling at Finn's arm.

"You don't seriously believe this, do you?"

"Well, why wouldn't I?" Finn demanded. He turned his heated glare back onto Sam. "Why wouldn't he do the same thing that I did to him?"

"Because it's gossip, Finn," said Quinn shortly, and rolled her eyes.

Her gaze met Kurt's, finding him visibly confounded from the abrupt way Sam had perched on him, then detached from him again.

For a single strange half-second, it was almost like he could read her mind, and she his. It was suddenly crystal clear that he and Quinn shared more than a secret. They shared a common desire to keep the secret. They had both been privy to Sam's life in a very personal way. They had both been the object of his ardent dedication. And even though Quinn had been selfish and taken all that for granted, he knew she had to still feel something for Sam to want to continue being his friend.

But clearly, they weren't the only ones who had paid a visit to the American Family Motel.

That tight-chested, face-buzzy feeling returned. Then Quinn's stare broke away again, and it was like it had never happened.

At that moment, Santana stormed in, newspaper clutched, angrily hurling blame at Brittany, and Kurt sat there, completely taken off-guard by the fact that suddenly, the choir room was full of angry people yelling about sensitive information. While Santana had thrown plenty of tantrums, he'd never heard her speak that way towards Brittany. He was more taken aback by it than Brittany seemed to be, even.

Finn wasn't done, though, and he wasn't about to let Santana steal his thunder. He erupted, "I swear I'm gonna punch your face off!" and lunged towards Sam.

Kurt leapt out of his seat, but his sub reacted even faster than he did.

"Hey!" Sam barked, shoving his stepbrother with a quick snap of muscle and unleashed anger that had Finn stumbling back. Words shot out of him like a barrage of machine gun fire, backed by another powerful shove. "You got a lot of nerve accusing me of _cheating_ – "

"Stop it!" Quinn tried, struggling to catch Finn's arm.

" – when _you're_ the one who snuck in –"

"Stop it, both of you!"

"– and stole my Domme!" Sam yelled.

"Stop!" Kurt cried out with in unison Quinn, stung, but they were both completely drowned out by Mr. Schue's booming voice.

" _Hey!_ "

Sam's body moved in a threatening jerk that suggested he was about to pounce onto Finn, but Mr. Schue's body had parted the two anyway. One of his hands planted in the middle of Sam's chest and directed him back. Sam eased off in automatic, instinctive submission, but Finn turned on the spot and stomped toward the door.

Frustrated, Mr. Schue yelled, "Hey, Finn, where you going? We have rehearsal!"

"Not today," Finn shot back.

As if backing him up, the bell rang, and Kurt saw Rachel hovering by the doorway, watching Finn stalk past her.

Startled silence filled the room.

Rachel broke it, staring at Quinn. "Aren't you going to go after him?"

"No, Rachel," said Quinn, voice dripping with an exhausted sort of disgust. "I'm not going to reward that kind of behavior with my attention."

After an affronted huff, Rachel protested, "Well, we can't have rehearsal without Finn!"

"Of course we can, and we will," said Mr. Schue, clipped. "Sit down, Rachel. Sam. All of you."

Breathing hard, Kurt sank back into his seat next to Mercedes, and with a sigh, Quinn moved to do the same. Santana huffed audibly, instead wandering in a circle like she couldn't even believe any of this.

"Sorry, Mr. Schue, but I'm not going to sit," said Rachel, in a grand display of her typical aggravating dissent. "Someone has to go after Finn. Someone has to care about him in all this, and Quinn clearly isn't that person."

"Excuse me?" Quinn said sharply.

"Hudson's not your butt-boy anymore, Berry," Zizes had the balls to point out, her arms crossed.

"You need to stay out of this, Rachel," added Quinn.

"You can't stop me," replied Rachel, impervious to the tone and everyone's stares, turning and walking quickly out the door.

With all eyes turning immediately to her, Quinn hesitated, but batted her lashes like it was all just a mild annoyance. Kurt knew that along with everyone else, she was wondering if she had to renege on her decision not to give Finn's outburst any attention, now that Rachel had made a power play.

For one Dom to publicly go against another's wishes in regards to their sub – and declare their disdain so blatantly – was beyond insulting. And for all her misdeeds and falls from grace, Quinn still carried the clout of being one of the most popular girls in school, and there were signs all over school advertising her run for prom royalty alongside Finn, an unquestionable public claim. The Lucy Caboosey posters hadn't even done anything but help her look sympathetic. But if she lost Finn right before prom, her campaign would finally go down in flames. Kurt thought his eyes might fall out of his head. Even Puck was paying attention.

"Go see to your sub, Quinn," sighed Mr. Schue, freeing Quinn to silently gather her notebook and not spare a look to anyone as she left. "And Santana, if you aren't going to sit, then you can leave, too."

"Oh, gee, am I still here? Do people who aren't Quinn or Rachel have problems?" Santana said sarcastically.

"Sam," Kurt beckoned, quiet but expectant, since Sam was still standing there with his shoulders jacked up, on the edge of wild, with Santana walking angry patterns around him. After a wide-eyed beat, looking like he only just remembered Kurt was there, Sam came to him, gaze dropping to the floor and sticking there as he took his seat.

"I don't know why anyone gives a crap about the latest slice of Fuinnchel hell when I'm being slandered in the media! This? This is libel!" Santana ranted. "This is a smear campaign! I'm gonna sue! I'm gonna sue this school up the butt!"

"Santana," Mr. Schue said sternly.

"Like, I don't even like Tegan and Sara! If you want gay, just follow the trail of Bieber hair right over to this giant straw-haired, dead-eyed, land-dwelling twink/fish hybrid!"

"Santana!"

She stopped in her tracks, darted an insulted look of revulsion at Mr. Schuester, and walked off, emitting a series of disgruntled huffs.

Mr. Schue stood there with his brows raised, looking at the group of kids that hadn't walked out of rehearsal as if he expected someone to say something. Kurt was sure if Coach Sylvester was there, she would have said something, at least about how deeply Mr. Schue's brows were wrinkling his forehead. She might have compared his face to a wad of Silly Putty that had picked up a print of Dagwood Bumstead then melted.

"Well," he finally said. "I hate to say it, but without our leads, we can't make much progress on our song-writing. On top of that, our piano player isn't here – another strike against us. We might as well take today off, clear our heads, and come back tomorrow with renewed energy and focus."

"Bomb," said Puck approvingly.

"We're going to make up for this missed time," Mr. Schuester countered, "with back-to-back-to-back rehearsals. I'll let you know when."

There were some murmurs of dissent, but Kurt didn't know who was bothering to complain. Sam was stoic beside him.

"Now, you're free to hang in here or leave, whichever," said Mr. Schue with open hands, indicating the choir room, "but I'm going to the auditorium to do some work. I'll be back to lock up at five. You guys... this drama needs to stop. I'm disappointed, and frankly, I'm a little hurt, too. I thought you guys wanted to win at Nationals. But if you all can't get it together, we might as well not waste the money."

He picked up his folder, wherein their original songs in progress were stacked with fresh copies he'd made up for everyone, tapped the piano with it in disapproval, and headed back towards his office.

"Sweet," said Puck, standing immediately. "I'm outtie. My lady?"

He tried to give Zizes a hand up, but it was batted away. Brittany was next to stand, heaving her backpack over her shoulder and wandering out with her koosh pen in hand, leaving Artie behind totally. There was some shuffling behind Kurt.

"We didn't do anything," murmured Tina. "Why did we get the admonishment?"

"I dunno," Mike replied, "but I feel so guilty!"

"So, that blind item was definitely about you, then, big-lipped blondie?" Mercedes spoke up, standing.

"It's not true," Kurt hastened to say, glancing up at her and giving his head a dismissive shake.

"I mean, I'll take your word for it," she shrugged, "but the Santana item was true. Brittany confirmed it on _Fondue For Two_ last week, but we've all always known it."

At this, Artie sighed and rolled himself away. As far as storming out of the choir room went, it wasn't nearly as dramatic as any of the other storm-outs, but Kurt knew it was probably the worst, because Mercedes was right – everyone knew Santana and Brittany were more than friends. At least Quinn and Sam weren't actually hooking up behind everyone's backs.

"Oops," Mercedes said.

"Oh, boy," Mike said.

"It had to come up eventually, right?"

"Ahh," said Mike, declining to answer.

"Between losing one of my blue contacts and all this yelling, this has been a truly terrible day," said Tina. "Does anyone want to go grab coffee and cry?"

"Hell to the yes," replied Mercedes. "Except I'll let you do all the crying. I just want a mocha frapp."

"Kurt?" Tina asked.

"No, no, Tina, thanks. And this isn't a terrible day," said Kurt, aware that Sam was frozen beside him. He really couldn't abide anyone saying his sub's birthday was terrible. "Just because Finn, Quinn, and Rachel are drama magnets and Santana briefly lost the ability to mention Lima Heights, it doesn't mean we did anything wrong. Don't let Mr. Schue's 'I'm so hurt' routine get you down. He's an adult. If he wants to win to Nationals so damn bad, he needs to handle his leads better, or stop letting Rachel dominate him into giving them all the vocals – let the rest of us handle it. We don't need to be so dependent on them."

"Snap," commented Mercedes, while Tina nodded in agreement and took Mike's hand. "There was so much truth in there. You sure you don't wanna come, Kurt? Sam?"

"No, we're going to stay here for a bit," said Kurt with a light smile.

"Okay," she relented doubtfully, and walked after Mike and Tina.

It wasn't silent, then – there were still kids milling in the hall for after-school activities, and Mr. Kidney was sweeping up piles of discarded copies of the _Muckraker_. But it was quiet. Kurt, who was amazed at how quickly rehearsal had fallen apart, sat there not knowing what to say.

He couldn't say he was shocked that Sam and Finn had gotten into a shoving match, but he was a bit blindsided that it was – still, as always, maybe even forever – over Quinn. Quinn, who had cheated on Finn; lied to him for months about him impregnating her; demanded money and support from him for a baby who wasn't his; constantly required effort and loyalty from him when she showed none in return. Quinn, who had run hot and cold on Sam; picked a public fight with him before she'd even claimed him; reveled in controlling his desire for her until his endless obedience became boring; kissed her ex behind his back and lied about it. She'd strung both Finn and Sam on, acting as innocent as a newborn dove.

He just didn't get it, and clearly never would. He got how the rest of the school continued to worship her, even after her pregnancy and leaving the Cheerios on the day of their championship and being publicly outed as a former fatty/uggo/cheater. But he didn't get her deep power over boys who knew better. He didn't get why they kept coming back. Was she sneaking them crack??

Instead of saying anything, he finally just looked over at Sam's profile.

Sam's eyelids fell shut under the weight of his stare. In a heavy voice, he said, "I'm sorry. I know you don't like it when things get physical. I just – snapped."

"You okay?" Kurt wondered carefully. "It... it didn't seem like the paper said anything about your family... just you meeting with Quinn."

"I don't know how anybody could know," said Sam. "I haven't told anybody else."

"Do you think Quinn might've told somebody?"

"Hope not," said Sam blankly. "She said she wouldn't. But who knows if that means anything."

"I'll talk to her," said Kurt.

"She won't admit anything to you."

"Oh," Kurt let out softly, nodding. "Right. I'm her rival for your affection, why would she?"

"Kurt –" Sam finally looked at him, then burst out, "I know you're mad at me! I shouldn't have snapped at Finn. I know it was wrong... I mean, I saw your face. I know I disappointed you."

"Well, I'm not going to lie," said Kurt, sort of hoarse and flat. "I didn't find it thrilling to hear you call Quinn your Domme, and you did startle me. But I'm not upset with you. I understand you'll always love Quinn and always be hurt she didn't want you, and I know how obtuse Finn can be, too."

"... Isn't that something to do with geometry?"

"Dumb, I was really saying," offered Kurt. "Unaware."

"Oh. Duh," muttered Sam. "Guess I'm obtuse too."

Kurt pulled in a calming breath. "Honey. Don't. You know I don't like that attitude, and if you keep going down that path, I really am going to get mad, mainly because I'll know you're pushing me on purpose. And I don't want to be mad. I just want to take you home with me and be with you for the afternoon and celebrate your birthday."

At that, Sam inhaled, then turned his face away. Another awkward, breathy hitch of his chest told Kurt he was either straining to hold back tears or that they were already rolling down his face and he was trying to hide it.

For once, Kurt's sympathy didn't instantly move him to try and comfort Sam, even though he really did want to. It was his birthday, after all, and he knew Finn could take a few shoves. Heck, he deserved them for acting like such a hypocritical ass. And Kurt had gotten a start from that motel item purely on the basis that he didn't want Sam's guarded private life to get aired around McKinley, so he knew that Sam had gotten an even bigger start – had gotten scared and defensive. Kurt wasn't trying to be heartless, but he sat there silently for a minute, letting Sam sniffle and try and calm down, allowing his own jangled nerves to settle, too.

Finally, he stood and turned towards Sam, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, sweetie," he said, his left thumb catching a tear on Sam's chin. "Nobody reads the newspaper. I didn't even know we had one."

"People think I'd cheat," said Sam thickly.

"No, no... they don't know you," Kurt told him. "They just know Quinn's reputation. It's gossip about Quinn, really. It's not about you."

"But now you think I love Quinn more than you."

It Kurt took a second to waveringly answer, startled further by Sam's simple, almost thoughtless use of the L-word. "No... it's not that..."

"I was just pissed at Finn. He was my friend – or I thought he was. People told me 'bout him and Quinn. I didn't wanna listen. Now this? He puts it all on me? I didn't even – why does he hate me?"

"He doesn't hate you. I promise. He just couldn't lash out at Quinn. You were a target he could take his anger out on."

Tenderly, Kurt cupped Sam's face, and Sam allowed him to turn it, though he still persistently averted his eyes. His lashes were darkened and spiky. There was a quiver in his chin that probably came from stubbornly trying to keep the rest of his face tightly schooled.

"I'm sorry Finn jumped to conclusions like that," said Kurt, palming Sam's wet cheek. "Quinn's majorly screwed him before, so he automatically believed she was doing it again. I mean, I'm not trying to defend his actions... he threatened you. But you didn't let him get away with it. That's all that happened. You don't have to look away from me."

Sam's lashes lifted, and Kurt saw a flicker of his irises before they dropped again. "Sorry. I'm just – ashamed. I want to make you proud, but I'm not. I'm just a big mess. I don't know how t – t'be better. I don't deserve you being so nice to me. I don't know how to be a good sub."

"I want you to listen to me, Sam," Kurt murmured, and took a ginger seat on him, side-saddle. It was about as awkward as having Sam on his lap, but Sam wrapped him up in a tight hug, so it felt just right, too. He rested his cheek on Sam's hair and felt him bow his head, enjoying the strong arms around him despite the woe he could feel in the touch. "Being a good sub doesn't mean being a mindless robot who doesn't feel things or have their own life or thoughts or urges. Not to me. I know some people think subs should just be doormats... sometimes literally... but I don't.

"Not that I want you to beat people up... I'm glad you and Finn didn't actually start throwing punches. But it's good that you can stand up for yourself. I like that about you. I like that you'll stand up for what you believe in. I've never forgotten that you stood up to Karofsky. You impressed everyone when you did that, not just me. I..." He swallowed his pride. "I think you probably know that more than you pushing Finn, I just didn't like hearing you call Quinn your Domme. Even if it was past tense."

"It just came out like that. I wasn't thinking about words. I'm so sorry." Sam sounded almost breathy with misery. "I don't think of her like that at all anymore."

"I know. It's... it's not even the words, I guess. I mean, I didn't like hearing them, but I know you don't think of yourself as Quinn's. I've just never seen you so upset."

"But I cry in front of you, like... constantly."

"Hmm, that's different, I think," Kurt told him, a smile spreading. "But crying's not a bad thing. Either way, it just means you care."

"I don't care – I mean, about Quinn. Not like this." Sam's arms tightened. "I care how you think about me more than anything."

"Well, I'm happy my opinion means so much to you."

"I want you believe me, though," Sam insisted.

"I do, sweetie."

"Please. 'Cause I mean it."

"I know you do. I know you care, Sam."

"But I want you to be proud to call me your sub."

"I am."

"... But I acted out."

"Shh," Kurt said, soft and short. "No more about this right now. I'm going to take you home. Home to my room," he clarified, so Sam wouldn't think Kurt was cutting their afternoon short. "Are you going to be a good boy and let me take you home?"

Bowing further, Sam nodded.

 

*

 

At only half past three, no one was home – not even Finn. Kurt had been a bit afraid he'd find that Finn had come straight home and that Rachel and Quinn had followed him and that they were all standing in the living room yelling at each other, or something. But the driveway was empty and peaceful.

Kurt had memories of pulling a drunk and vulnerable Sam out of his back seat the night of Rachel's party and leading him inside, simply thrilled that he was so compliant. He was such a cute boy, and getting to take him under his wing and even play at being Dom for the night had been a dream come true. He also had some particularly good memories (which came back to him almost every time he pulled his car into the drive) of sitting in his car with Sam the day he'd collared him, the both of them riding some serious adrenaline highs. That had been a new beginning for them, for sure. Now it felt familiar to take Sam home with him, but familiar in a way that had some pretty amazing precedent.

Silent much of the way home, Sam had composed himself, sitting in the passenger seat and catching stray tears on the little blue sleeve stretched over his wrist cuff till they weren't spilling over his cheeks anymore. He didn't try to say anything, and Kurt didn't press him to talk. He let Kurt buckle and unbuckle his seat belt for him, signaling to Kurt that he had slipped into a subservient frame of mind.

It was quiet inside. Kurt took Sam by the wrist, holding his collar lightly as he lead Sam through the den and up the staircase to his room. He handed Sam his messenger bag, and Sam unquestioningly carried it over to the chair in the corner, tucking their things together in its seat.

"Thank you, cutie. Nice job," Kurt said indulgently, wondering if Sam was thinking of the picture Kurt had taken of their things in that chair.

He watched Sam wipe his hands down his thighs anxiously, eyes round and concerned.

Although he was trying not to make any firm decisions, Kurt didn't know what to think about putting his sub in restraints as he'd wanted to. Maybe it wasn't the day for it. Still, they had an unexpected extra hour with no possibility of his parents interrupting them. He couldn't help but want to take advantage of the birthday gift of time Mr. Schue had unknowingly given.

But the most important thing was just to smooth Sam out, he thought. So Kurt said, "How about you just lie down for a few minutes while I take care of something... will you do that?"

"Where –" Sam began in a froggy voice, which he cleared with a gulp. "Where do you want me?"

"On my bed. On your back. Nice and relaxed," said Kurt.

"... Shirt?" Sam asked, sounding shy.

"Shirt on. Shoes off. Socks, surprise me," said Kurt with a smile.

Sam mirrored his smile self-consciously and bent to yank his sneakers off. With some bemusement and achy fondness, Kurt wondered how he walked around with untied shoelaces so often. The uneven, loose feeling would drive Kurt nuts.

Once he'd lined his shoes neatly beside Kurt's hope chest, Sam put himself on his back, scooting until he was in dead center of the bed. Then he looked nervous about the decision and peered at Kurt for approval.

"There you go. Are you comfy?" Kurt asked him, helplessly admiring Sam's blue jeans, the stretch of his legs, his mismatched gym socks clinging to the soles of his feet. One had a gold toe, and the other toe was just white.

"Yeah – but... no, too," Sam responded. "I know you don't want me to drag on myself, but if I'm being honest, it feels kinda wrong to be on your bed when I don't deserve it."

"I always appreciate it when you're honest with me, Sam, and tell me your real feelings. I know you feel bad about what happened, and I accept your apology and want you to know that everything's all right. And whether you think you deserve to be on my bed or not, I put you exactly where I want you, so just try and think about it like that," said Kurt. He opened his dresser drawer and pawed aside some underwear, pictures, a travel hairdryer, and the vintage muscle magazines April Rhodes had gifted him shortly before turning him into a staggering daytime drunk. "If it makes you feel any better, though, there is a catch to being on my bed today."

As Kurt turned to him, closing the dresser drawer again, he found Sam's red-rimmed gaze on him, alert. "A catch?"

"Mm-hm! You have to wear this," said Kurt, chipper, and stretched his sleep mask over Sam's blond head, tugging it down over his eyes easily.

"Wh – 's this a – blindfold?" Sam asked in a vulnerable way, his breath catchy in his throat.

"Uh-huh," Kurt said, trying not to snicker outright.

The _Breakfast At Tiffany's_ -inspired mask had been hand-crafted by Tina as a gift for Kurt's last birthday, and it was kitschy and fun, teal satin with gold braided trim and thick lashes cut from black felt. He watched as Sam reached up to feel the mask with his fingers, which stopped at the fan of felt lashes and patted them, clearly unable to figure out what they were.

"Hand down, please."

Sam obeyed instantly.

Tweaking the presentation with his usual pickiness, Kurt eased a couple of his thicker pillows sheathed in tidy decorative shams out from behind Sam, flattening him to the bed all the more, then stood back and examined him with interest. While adorable on principle alone, the mask was even more so on Sam's face, its elastic band snug to his hair and the satin completely obscuring his brow and eyes, letting his plush pink lips take front and center. The mask was so incongruent with his jocky little outfit and shaggy hair, Kurt just loved the whole picture. 

After only five seconds or so of silence, Sam got antsy. He reached up to touch the mask again before remembering Kurt had only just asked him to put his hand down and quickly flattening it to the mattress again.

Kurt watched Sam's head tilt and turn, lift and settle, feeling a sense of confusion and curiosity from the restless movements. With half of Sam's face covered, he couldn't see exactly what kind of expression he was making, but it did remind him of how Stacey could only take so much sitting still.

"Can you see out at all?" Kurt asked.

"No. It's dark," said Sam, one corner of his mouth twitching as he spoke, almost smiling. Sam's mouth was so ungodly beautiful, Kurt felt a tug in his chest.

This was his sub. This boy submitted to him. This boy allowed Kurt to blindfold him – to tie his hands behind his back – to tell him what to wear, put him on display. This boy wanted to obey and serve him so badly he cried about it. This boy had sat on his lap in front of all their friends, regardless of any number of things that could have prevented him from even having the idea to in the first place. He wondered if Sam had acted randomly or if he'd been thinking about it in advance and had made a move. He wondered if Sam had liked it, or if it had felt better or maybe more natural to him to have Kurt on his lap.

Kurt reached out and brushed Sam's arm covetously, gently pushing up his sleeve and watching his fingers slide over Sam's skin and sandy hair, and then his thick camo-print wrist collar.

"Absolutely no peeking," he murmured.

"Why? What are you doing?" Sam asked, his head tilting up so he could speak to where it must have seemed Kurt's voice was coming from.

"That's for me to know," Kurt sang softly, and gave Sam's side a tender little tickle, since he was so defenseless.

Sam jerked responsively, shoulder hunching and arm tucking in to cover his side. That had definitely startled a big smile out of him. "Hey...!"

"You be good – I won't hesitate to tickle you till you're begging for reprieve. Just ask Elmo," laughed Kurt, and bustled over to his closet.

In it, a bouquet of red and white latex balloons he'd had filled with helium at the grocery store quite early that morning were stuffed, still cooperatively buoyant. To be sure, they were no shiny Disney princess balloons swaying to 80s hair band jams in the breeze of constant air conditioning, but they were in the Cheerio tradition. Kurt had never been tasked with decorating lockers, but he'd noted the general school spirit aesthetic and decided to put his own spin on it.

As silently as possible, Kurt drew them out, trying not to make them bump noisily against each other. He cast a look at Sam, who still had his face tilted up. He looked like he was listening carefully.

"So, anything in particular you want to do while you're here, birthday boy?" Kurt asked cheerily, hoping to distract.

Sam's chin tilted down a little, his mouth bowing then flattening. His fingers curled into the hem of his shirt and gave it a squeeze.

"I just wanna be your sub," he said, hardly above a whisper.

"Ah, is that what you want," said Kurt playfully, as if he hadn't already known that. Coming over and spending time with Kurt in his room, as his sub, was what Sam had specifically asked for.

As he'd put together plans for the day, Kurt had imagined both ends of the domination spectrum – Sam, perhaps in his jock strap and excited by wearing it the way he'd been last week, butt all bare and exposed for whatever Kurt wanted to inflict on it... and Sam fully clothed, just dozing off with his cheek on Kurt's shoulder while Kurt, oh, surfed TeenVogue.com on his laptop or whatever – and didn't know which was more like the mental picture Sam had. Sam had said it didn't matter if they couldn't mess around and vowed he would act appropriately, but it still seemed like Sam was asking for something in particular.

"I messed it up, didn't I?" Sam asked from the bed, sounding resigned.

"You're on my bed, wearing a blindfold," said Kurt, moving slowly as he weighted the balloons by their ribbons down with Sam's discarded blue Converse high tops. "What do you think?"

"I think you're doing something you don't want me to see," Sam responded. "Maybe you're changing clothes? Maybe you're naked!"

Kurt burst into a chortle, reaching into his built-in shelf for a half-hidden bag of confetti. "I know I'm tempting, but don't you dare peek, sub."

For some reason, that made Sam stuff both his hands right up his shirt, as if that would help him resist the temptation to lift the mask for a peek. It was completely weird, and somehow childish and innocent.

Kurt tried not to laugh, but it didn't exactly work. He just giggled under his breath, littering red and silver confetti on the dresser, on the floor around the balloons, and over the trunk at the end of his bed.

Sam had made a good point at school earlier, he soon realized, after attempting to be relatively neat. He was going to be sweeping and vacuuming this stuff up for the next week. So he stopped being chintzy and particular and sprinkled it all over the floor, and even on his bed in a shiny halo around Sam's prone form.

As he rounded the bed, Sam's head tilted to follow in almost an bird-like fashion; Kurt could tell he could hear the rustle of the bag, but was clueless about the confetti surrounding him.

"You're so cute with that blindfold on!" Kurt told him merrily.

That tweaky corner of Sam's mouth pulled.

"Piñata," he declared, sounding like he'd thought he'd figured it out. It sent Kurt into another spasm of giggles. "... No?"

"I don't know!" he teased. "Maybe you're right!"

Sam pursed his lips thoughtfully. He was quiet as Kurt pulled a poster board sign out from behind his dresser. It scraped loudly against the wall, obviously getting his attention, but Kurt honestly had no idea what he was thinking with his expressive eyes hidden from sight.

"So when you say you want to be my sub today, what does that mean to you, Sam?" Kurt asked, heading back to his craft box for some Scotch Removable Poster Tape.

Sam's fingers twitched under his shirt. After a pause, he said, nonplussed, "I wanna do anything you want me to do."

"Like... lie down on my bed for me?" Kurt persisted. "I know you said you don't deserve it, but you submitted anyway. Does that make you feel like an obedient boy, doing what I ask?"

"Yeah..." Just when Kurt thought Sam was only going to give him that simple breathy answer, he added, "Being wherever you put me. Abiding by your wishes, listening to what you say. Making you happy. Making you proud."

"How thoughtful of you," Kurt purred, taping his poster up. "What do you think might make me a proud Dom?"

"I don't know," whuffled Sam immediately. "Maybe... I dunno."

"Maybe what, sweet pea?"

"I don't know. Like, maybe... if you were gonna give me a check? But – I don't know if you want... that."

"Well, I like the sound of it. What kind of check shall I give my sub, hm?" he asked, unrolling another birthday banner. He knew perfectly well what kind of check Sam was talking about, but hearing Sam try and put things into words when there was obviously some kind of mental hurdle in the way was one of his favorite things.

"Any kind," said Sam. "You can check me however you want."

"How true!"

"But, like... if you gave me a jock check..."

"I wonder what I'd find," said Kurt cheekily, giving the banner a once-over to make sure it was hanging level and even (it was; he had a gift) before making for the roll of red crepe paper in his craft box.

Bringing it up like that, no doubt Sam had something to show him. But since they had this extra pocket of time, he was going to really do it up right and festoon the place with a few streamers. He'd planned to decorate the lane when they'd gone bowling, but Sam had begged him not to make a big deal out of it and repeatedly insisted it wasn't a party, so Kurt had conceded, packed away the crepe paper, and focused on his cake pop planets. This was his last chance for some real birthday panache.

On the bed, Sam wiggled a little. "Or if... if you wanted an encore?"

"An encore?" echoed Kurt.

"Yeah," Sam breathed. "Of last night. I could give you one."

Keeping his movements deliberate and even so the noise of the soft paper unraveling wouldn't give itself away, Kurt eyed his sub, whose arms were twisted together under his shirt, the outline of his cuffs and their buckles clearly visible through the fabric, his fists gripping his shirt collar from the inside. The Holly Golightly sleep mask was still perfectly in place, and Sam's legs were stretched out, completely relaxed, prone and forgotten. However, Kurt could see a telling rise in his jeans. His sub being openly aroused was a sight he was starting to get used to, but he knew he would never stop being delighted by it. Here he was, decorating, and there Sam was, getting turned on at the prospect of servicing him.

"You would give an encore presentation just for me?" he asked, feigning pleasant surprise.

"Yeah, 'course, if – if you let me," Sam said.

"I bet a sub like you would like that more than a piñata," Kurt replied.

"Lots more," said Sam.

"Hm, me too..."

Sam shifted gently in place, hips picking up for a tick, one shoulder rolling. The movement made him look eager.

"I'll do anything you want," he offered, sounding more certain.

"I want you to say what you want, birthday boy," Kurt returned.

Sam sighed, his mouth opening around the short gust of air, but he cooperatively said, "I'll do whatever you want, that's what I want, really... but I – really wanna service you again... please, Kurt. Give you an encore."

"Hmm," Kurt hummed, as if thoughtful, taping down a streamer with a grin on his face.

After a long few seconds of either listening close to what Kurt was doing or possibly thinking hard, Sam fidgeted and flexed, squeezing the twist of his arms, and gulped breathlessly, "I wanna make you come. If I don't deserve to, I get it, but I'd still be so lucky to use my mouth for you. I'll suck you off however much you want... I –" He huffed. "I wanna service you so bad."

All that had Kurt feeling breathless, too, and increasingly like he was wasting time draping crepe paper twists. "You do?"

"Please," Sam said. He was flexing in his shirt like he was in a strait jacket or something. "I'll wait however long you want – do it whenever you want, wherever you want – in the car, or anywhere. If you just want me to service you on my breaks, I'll do it every night. Or however much you want. If you want, I'll make you come before the alarm goes off – and I'll swallow it all – please. If you let me. I want to. I promise I won't let any get on your clothes. I'll make you come and I'll swallow it all."

Kurt set down the roll of red paper on his dresser and stepped towards Sam.

"Sweetie," he said lovingly, making Sam's head pick up a little in recognition of the fact that he was nearby. Kurt dropped a touch to his knee cap, then dragged it all the way up his thigh, sliding along till Sam's pelvis was thrusting up, straining in anticipation for him. "Ah-ah, down, Sam – relax," he said patiently, grinning outright as Sam exhaled, chastised but resolute, and let his body slump again. "Aw, there you go... that's my good boy."

He traced the lift of denim next to Sam's zip, fingertips and then palm following the bulge of Sam's cock in his loose-fit jeans. It had definitely grown since Kurt had noticed it, taking up more room.

"Kurt," Sam breathed, mouth inarticulate, and lost some tension in his arms for a hot second before they flexed again, along with his whole core as he tried not to rock up.

"That's my good sub. I can feel how excited you are. Are you excited to be my sub?"

"Yes – Kurt, yes, please," panted Sam.

"You just be patient and wait for me," Kurt said dotingly, hand pushing and rubbing at Sam through his jeans. He was chubbing just talking like this, let alone giving his sub's helpless dick some attention. "I know when it comes to your Dom, you can wait so long."

"Yes, Kurt."

"You're such an obedient boy for me, Sam, I know, but... if I take your arms out of your shirt, are you gonna use your hands to move your blindfold? Peek out of it?"

"I don't want to – but I'll do it without thinking," his sub blurted, "and I wanna be good for you."

"Oh, no, sweetie," cooed Kurt sympathetically, slipping his hand up to feel Sam's strong forearms through his shirt. "We can't have that. Do I need to bind your wrists again?"

Sam's body fell into a momentary lull, his belly sinking and his chest rising while the rest of him seemed to go slack. Kurt could hear him pulling in a lengthy surprised breath.

"Yes, Kurt," he managed, voice thick.

"What was that? Yes, you need to be tied up?"

"Yes – I need t'be tied up, if – if you want."

If Kurt wanted. _If Kurt wanted._ How could he resist? Even if he didn't have an under-the-bed bondage system at his disposal, he had his collection of scarves and neckties and about twenty belts and a set of spare hot pink shoelaces and any number of other things he could tie Sam's wrists behind his back with. The possibilities were immediate and endless. He could take the case off of one of his pillows and thread that through the rings on Sam's cuffs. He could take the ribbon off of one of the balloons floating nearby. He could use Sam's belt, or one of Sam's socks.

And there had to be other ways of making Sam keep his arms down. He didn't have to actually tie Sam up to put him in bondage. He could make it a rule. He could have Sam put his hands in his back pockets and forbid him to move. He could make him keep his thumbs in his belt loops. He knew Sam would try his best.

But he really, really wanted to tie Sam to his bed.

After giving Sam's arms a steadfast squeeze, he said decisively, "Give me your right arm, Sam."

There was a beat of uncertainty over which arm was the correct arm, but then Sam drew it from under his shirt and held it out in Kurt's direction.

The tiny thud of his hand pressing Sam's cuffed wrist to the upper corner of the mattress was startlingly loud – or maybe that was just how Kurt heard it, like this righteous crack of thunder.

His palm was abruptly sweaty, seemed so hot on Sam's wrist, the pressure he was exerting raw and unrefined.

Shaky with the sudden, pure, overtaking adrenaline slamming through him, Kurt held him there, hand insistent, seeking along the edge of the mattress for the empty clasp he'd left when he'd taken the original cuffs off the strap. It took him several seconds to find it and pull it out. Then there was a distinct metallic clink as he attached the hook to one of the D-rings on Sam's wrist collar.

It was that simple.

Just stepping back and looking at the extension of Sam's arm – completely resting on the mattress but stretched out from his body and up and held there for him – had him breathing hard. Even though his musculature was mostly clad in blue cotton, it was still evident and the presentation of it still beautiful. The seam under Sam's arm had gathered a small shadow of sweat. Sam's palm was upright and open and docile, fingers at rest in a curl. The shape he made was borderline Vitruvian.

Then, whether totally knowingly or just reflexively, Sam tried to move his arm.

But he didn't get too far. His elbow bent and his wrist tugged at the strap, but he was caught; he couldn't move his arm back down to his side again.

Kurt hadn't tightened the arm or leg straps down at all, giving Sam nearly a foot of spare strap to pull. Still, even given some slack, his hand was confined to the corner of the mattress and only had so much space to move in. He was well and truly attached, and even with his eyes covered, Kurt could still see the exact second he realized it.

"Uncomfortable?" Kurt asked intently, before he could get much further with this and lose his entire freaking mind.

"No – I just –"

For a second, Sam seemed frozen, his mouth hanging open and his eyes shielded. Then his bicep rounded, flexing noticeably; he was pulling gently but steadily, processing the lack of give. His head lifted, then dropped against the pillow with a flump. Kurt watched him huff out, ball his hand into a tight fist, and try to drag his arm down, his other arm slipping out from under his shirt as the effort he was making took more of his attention.

"Left arm," Kurt said briskly, rounding the bed with quick, intent steps and giving his fingers a commanding snap.

Whatever he was thinking, Sam unquestioningly stretched it up in a mirror image of the other. It put his hand at much the same place in the corner of the mattress, completely at the ready.

"Oh, you know exactly what to do, don't you," Kurt chuckled. He found the hook and pulled the strap right up, this time brimming with confidence. Being physically forceful was neither his style nor forte, but he put a stern hand on Sam's arm and held it there as he attached Sam's cuff.

"It's not a scarf," Sam muttered, his head tipping back. It was stupidly precious, how he kept trying to look in what he deduced to be Kurt's direction as if he could possibly make eye contact with that girly sleep mask completely obscuring half his face. He wondered what Sam would give for a _Phantom_ mask instead so he could see what Kurt was attaching him to.

"Not this time," Kurt confirmed, giving the hook a nice tug to make it clink lightly and signal to Sam that he was all strapped in. Well, half strapped in, technically, he realized, trying to keep a tidal wave of dizzying arousal at bay. "Your collars are so good for tying you up, aren't they?"

As he had with his right, Sam had to test his left, but this time he gave his wrist a much harder jerk and strained for several seconds.

"Don't hurt yourself, now, cutie," Kurt tisked. "You're not going anywhere."

After a moment, Sam seemed to piece the full picture of his restraint together, both arms pulling with bent elbows, his mouth slipping open around quick, shallow breaths as his shoulders rolled and squirmed. His knees slid up so he could plant his socked feet against the mattress, exhaling as if he was suddenly alarmed.

Kurt could feel the sharp uptick in tension radiating from Sam, as palpable in the air between them as a heavy, hot fog. Sam couldn't have anticipated winding up in this situation even after agreeing to be tied up, or anticipated how it might feel; he hadn't dreamed for days about being manacled into this thing. He was only just starting to process the fact that Kurt had rigged something up to tie him to and that he probably couldn't get off the mattress if he tried.

As his sub's understanding grew, so did Kurt's smile.

"Now you won't peek on accident, will you," he murmured lovingly.

"No, Kurt," Sam huffed.

"Nope. That's right. You can't peek. You can't use your arms. You're tied to my bed like a good little submissive."

Casually, Kurt reached for Sam's somewhat distended zip, groping over his erection and listening to the sweet whimper Sam let out, his knees slouching open in deference to the touch. For that heated moment, all his curious struggling halted. Kurt guessed Sam could only really deal with one thing at a time right then. As soon as he'd satisfied himself that Sam wasn't going to fall completely limp in the face of his situation, he let his touch slip away.

"Wait here. I'm going to finish up," he said, his voice just a fond, breathy drawl, and left Sam there on the bed, blindfolded and restrained and quite hard in his jeans.

Twisting the crepe paper and creating streamers then became a complete pleasure, as Kurt could hear him panting and rustling softly against the bedspread, unknowingly surrounded by red and silver glitter as he squirmed and pulled at his restraints – slowly at first, then really jerking his wrists with some agitation that slowed down again after a minute.

It was just so right. Kurt wasn't even astonished by it, or at the depth of his certainty. He'd felt dubious about the restraints there for a bit, but seeing Sam try and tangle himself in his own shirt was just too cute, too telling. Now that his worry over whether being restrained was too much for Sam to handle had passed, he could see how obviously his sub took to it. He wasn't struggling in fear or hoping he'd be able to pull hard enough that he could free himself from the restraints. He was feeling just how restrained he actually was; he was feeling what Kurt had done to him in an extremely tangible, physical way and moving in the space Kurt allowed him.

Simply answering Kurt's questions and circling the ideas of inspection and service had gotten him roused, and Kurt could see him lathering himself up even more just pulling on his straps and wiggling.

"How do your arms feel?" Kurt asked, once he'd taken care of the last streamer in the merrily ridiculous arrangement that made his dresser look as if it was about ready to float away, but was held down on both sides by streamers.

"... Good," squeaked Sam.

"You're a wiggly little sub," Kurt noted, satisfied.

"Mmf," Sam acknowledged, then let out a gasp when Kurt took his belt buckle in hand without warning, slipping cheap fake brown leather loose from the clasp.

The button of his jeans was next, but Sam still huffed in surprise when he felt it come undone. Without the sense of sight, he seemed to have no idea what was coming next, no matter how logical it was, which was more of a power trip than Kurt could have anticipated.

"Time for your jock check," Kurt told him, pulling his zip down deliberately. "Before you get so wiggly you make a mess of your jeans."

"Kurt," Sam choked, the word barely even mouthed. The straps that reached out from underneath the mattress went taut, pulled tight by the tense flex of Sam's body.

"Shh-shh-shh," Kurt let out comfortingly. "I know you won't come without asking me first... and look at this... look at my sub wearing this sexy little jock strap under these jeans! Let me see it, Sam."

Eagerly cooperative, Sam twisted, pushing his hips up and letting Kurt slide his jeans down, the white pouch of his jock stretching delicately over his hard cock.

It was so beautiful, Kurt could have died – not just the taut skin of Sam's belly and the curve of his erection caught in the strap and thrust up invitingly, but the evidence of Sam's obedience. Kurt didn't need to ask if he'd worn it all day. He just bet his sub had been eager to be able to wear it to school. He just bet Sam had made a distinct effort not to succumb to the immense distraction he had last time. Sam was the one who had suggested the jock check, knowing Kurt would find he had obeyed and wanting him to see. It was crazy that Kurt had created this moment of anticipation and satisfaction, this gorgeous sight, by telling him to wear it.

"You are so my good boy," sighed Kurt, which made Sam groan softly. "Show me your abs, too..."

Because Sam couldn't do anything other than let him, Kurt pushed Sam's blue shirt up for him, exposing the climb of his happy trail all the way from the gray waistband of his jock to his navel. He didn't stop till Sam's ribs were visible. Save the strap slung over his junk, Sam was naked from the knees to his pecs, tense and vulnerable on the mattress, arms stretched open.

"Mmm," Kurt hummed, disturbing confetti as he climbed onto the bed and slid easily between Sam's knees. "I'm going to be very thorough with this check, Sam."

Sam's head lifted, his wide-spread arms jerking uselessly when Kurt palmed the tops of his bare thighs. It fell lightly against the pillow again as Kurt's hands slid up to the dents beneath his hips, stroked at the firm elastic waist of the jock, and continued up his waist.

Without Sam's eyes or even his brow visible, his expression was difficult to determine, and the tension in Sam's body could have been mistaken for something uneasy if Kurt didn't know better. He braced himself against the touch, but Kurt could feel that Sam was flexing for him on purpose, trying to anticipate where he would touch. He'd gathered his muscles just like this in the school bathroom, sucked his slim belly in and even clenched his cute little butt. It made him look totally cut, even though he already looked perfect to Kurt's discerning eyes anyway.

"Last time you wore a jock strap for me, you got so subby," commented Kurt, listening to Sam breath catch, squeaky, in his throat. "I bet you've been wondering all day if wearing this means you're gonna get some birthday spankings."

His sub let out a little punch of air.

"You'd get seventeen of them, huh, birthday cutie."

Sam's Adam's apple slipped over a hard-won gulp.

"Oh... and one to grow on."

Kurt gave Sam's gray waistband an abrupt snap, right in the middle of his belly. Jerking, Sam sucked in a gasp of surprise, his wrists clinking as his arms reflexively tugged against the straps keeping them up and open.

"Hmm? Did you think I'd spank you some more, sub?"

"I – dunno," Sam managed awkwardly.

"Your butt's so tempting in this jock strap of yours," Kurt informed him, tracing the logo on the waistband. "Did you like me taking you to the discretionary? Bending you over the bed in there? And spanking your bare ass right there in the nurse's office?"

His sub moaned timidly. "Yes..."

"Mmm – 'cause you know I didn't spank you as a punishment. It meant I liked what I saw. Isn't that right?"

"I wasn't in trouble," Sam responded. To Kurt's relief, it sounded like he'd actually absorbed what had happened, as blurry and zoned-out as he'd been that day.

"That's right. The opposite. You were perfectly obedient and pleased me so much, Sam. It turned me on, you showing me your jock strap at school. Showing me your obedience. Showing me your body. I love your body. And I couldn't resist your sweet cheeks! I had to touch 'em... give 'em a little smack..."

"Mmf," Sam agreed.

"And you certainly got yourself quite a few smacks, huh?"

"Yes."

"You asked for a lot," Kurt said, loving it, the tip of his finger following the simultaneously silky and wiry trail of copper-tinged hair that climbed, slender and sweet, up from Sam's jock towards his navel. "You didn't know what it was gonna be like, but you still said I should give your ass however many smacks I wanted. Did you feel like a good boy, submitting to me like that?"

"Yes – Kurt – yes," breathed Sam, wrists tugging.

"Mm, good," Kurt crooned softly, fingering the dip of Sam's belly button right in his abs. "I don't spank my sub for punishment, do I?"

"No," Sam answered with conviction.

"That's right. I spank my sub 'cause I own him and he needs to know it. And when he puts his bottom on display in a jock, he's just asking for a spanking. Begging to be owned. You need to be spanked. You're such a sub, your ass needs lots of domming. Is that what a sub like you needs, Sam?"

Sam tried to answer, panting and grunting incoherently before managing, " _Yes_."

"Those girls didn't know how to handle you. But I do. You're my sub," Kurt said, enjoying every single syllable coming out of his mouth, "and I'll dominate your subby little jock ass whenever I want. However I want. With whatever I want. My hand. My cock. _Catcher In the Rye_."

Sam gasped, head nearly rolling off the pillow, "Thank you."

"Open your knees," Kurt demanded in return.

With his jeans still around his calves, it was awkward, but Sam still did it without hesitation, sliding his feet up the mattress alongside Kurt and planting them there, rounded knees tipping open for him.

"More than that, sweetie," said Kurt. 

Immediately, Sam yanked his knees up. It took his sock feet off the bed entirely. One ankle overlapped the other as he strained to please, his knees to his ribs, showing off slender but defined hamstrings bulked and stretching in the backs of his thighs. His jeans hung around his ankles, totally in the way. Now Kurt could easily see where the white pouch of his jock met the straps that curved so snugly around his ass cheeks, and see those cute round cheeks naked on his bedspread – just barely still on it, with the way Sam was desperately tilting up for him.

Kurt reached under Sam's knees to brace his long legs, feeling tendons on edge against his thumbs. He'd made Sam spread for him the day he'd collared him. He remembered Sam drunk-ishly moaning that he liked spreading his legs for Kurt, already sweaty and heavy from two orgasms and yet completely eager to be dominated even more. A shiver of harsh arousal made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as Kurt panted and presided over the sweet shape of submission before him.

His sub squeaked, an upper body squirm making his glutes clench.

"My, that was a cute noise," Kurt drawled, delighted. "Tell me what it was all about."

"You're looking at me," Sam answered breathlessly. "I mean, it just feels like you are – and I wanna please you, but I don't know if I am..."

Biting on his lip, Kurt ran his hand lightly up the back of Sam's thigh, palming over to the inside of it where it was smooth, tiny gold hairs disappearing the further up he got. He didn't know if he could ever look his fill of Sam's body, whether he was lying prone or had his face shoved into Kurt's mattress and his ass up in the air, waiting for attention.

"You are. I love looking at you. Your body is just – unbelievable, Sam," he sighed, not sure Sam could ever understand just how amazing it was for him to have a muscular jock at his mercy but knowing that Sam needed to hear what he was thinking.

Even though Kurt had soaped Sam up just about everywhere but his junk the morning he'd taken him from Santana, he'd made himself keep it strictly business, enjoying the firm planes of Sam's muscles all slippery under his fingers but not lingering anywhere too long. Initially he'd drawn the bath for Sam so he could just relax and get clean and go home without looking like he'd woken up still slightly intoxicated in the bed of a Dom to whom he did not belong.

But it had become something else after that fate-changing phone call.

Kurt had asserted his authority immediately. Rather than leave Sam to bathe himself, he'd let Sam know right off the bat that he was going to take care of him – and not passively, either. It had excited Kurt on a primal, dominating level to give that sort of attention to another boy and have him meekly welcome it. What a complete dream; what a far cry from Finn bristling and smacking his hand away if Kurt so much as tried to hand him a moist towelette. Sam hadn't uttered a peep, but Blaine had informed him afterwards that his sub had been silently on edge, feeling scrutinized.

He reached for the denim sagging at Sam's ankle and worked the jeans off one leg gently, leaving his sock on, and then reached between his knees to urge them to lower again.

Obediently, Sam let his legs ease and settle around Kurt, one mostly bare and all the more mobile for it, and the other tangled in denim. Kurt gave his thighs a rewarding caress, fascinated that Sam responded to his touch so fluidly, with no visual input or directions other than the guiding pressure of his hands. And now Sam was laid out for him, with his lanky limbs and long torso, abs freshly bunched from curling so obediently, strong curves of muscles wrapping around his hips and dipping low, and his jock strap riding even lower, fucking full of his hard cock. Kurt reached out and shoved his blue shirt up even higher, adding taut pecs and tiny nipples to the picture.

Sam arched crookedly, aware of his stare.

"Beautiful," Kurt murmured, thumbing at the small, unassuming nubs of Sam's nipples. They tightened right against the touch. Kurt paused and circled them for a moment, wondering if it felt good to Sam. He remembered thinking that he'd clamp them someday. He gave them a curious little pinch, which got a better response: Sam's head jerking up off the pillow. "Do you like that, little sub?"

" – Dunno," Sam huffed after a flummoxed few seconds, dropping his head back.

"No? You don't know?"

After another firm pinch that got Sam clinking in his restraints, Kurt left his sub's nipples tweaked, hands sliding down the columns of Sam's abs. Sam was panting, his belly sunk and the defined set of his abdominals and arc of his ribs rising over tiny, quick breaths. The grooves of his obliques beckoned touch. That skinny little trail of hair under his navel required ruffling. Kurt let his touch roam slowly, earning himself twitches and surprised inhales as he snapped the waistband of Sam's jock and traced the shape of his dick, fingering the ridge of his knob over and over, till Sam's breaths followed his rhythm, captive to it. As forgiving and stretchy as the pouch was, one little push had the bulging head of Sam's cock popping right out the side, which made Kurt grin like the Cheshire cat.

"Oh, that's so good. I love it when you're hard, Sam," he murmured, letting Sam hear his immense pleasure. He'd told Sam that what felt like a hundred times, wanting to get it drilled into his head that natural responses weren't ever something he was going to glare at, and he could see himself saying it a thousand more times. Sam's legs and behind clenched, pushing his erection against Kurt's palm in a wordless plea, or maybe just a simple blind offering of something that his Dom was showing so much interest in.

Leaning onto his left hand, Kurt took him up on the offer. He rubbed at that hard dick through the light, stretchy layer of cotton, watching his motions make his shaft slide against the material and the bared head just thrust out the side even further, lewd and sexy as anything Kurt had ever seen. He palmed and stroked and kneaded and pushed at Sam's hard-on under the pouch, listening to Sam's exhales swell deeper, too, verging on needy. He slid his fingers low and squeezed gently at Sam's balls, rolling them and making Sam moan and lift his hips in repeated invitation.

"Ah, I know my sub likes _this_ ," Kurt teased gently.

His sub wasn't the only one who liked it, though; Kurt felt more and more arousal-stoned as he felt Sam up with singular purpose, allowing Sam to rub up against his hand. The tension in Sam thickened and trembled, his balls increasingly taut.

Finally, Sam blurted, "Please – I'm'nna – I'm too close –"

Stepping past his total thrill, Kurt elegantly shifted his hand right up to Sam's sternum, fingers hot with friction and the heat of Sam's need. He waited a few beats for Sam to get ahold of his senses, then asked, "Oh, is your Dom playing with you gonna make you come, cutie?"

"Uh," Sam let out, mostly just letting out air and tension. He shook his head, stymied, then said, "Please, I wanna be good. Should I – ask you to stop?"

Kurt pretended to give it a beat of thought, then declared, "Yes."

"Kurt," came weakly from Sam's mouth. It sounded like the opposite of a protest.

"Good boy," breathed Kurt, satisfaction twisting up in his veins from head to toe. He let Sam have another few moments to unclench, which he spent stroking his abs and then his thighs with light fingertips, feeling the indentations of his quads giving way to adductors. Then he let his fingers slip down to where the straps of Sam's jock joined, and brushed the skin right under it curiously.

"Oh!" Sam let out, just shocked air, his chest thrusting up as his knees tugged themselves open. "K – Kurt."

"Look at you, spreading your legs," Kurt cooed.

For a second Sam's knees twitched inwards in an automatic waver of uncertainty, but he let them slump open again. Kurt nudged his tongue at his own cheek thoughtfully, watching Sam's face like a hawk as he drew some tender circles on that delicate skin behind Sam's balls. His mouth had dropped open. He bet Sam had no idea how astonished he looked, slack-jawed like that.

"Remember what I told you about your ass?" Kurt asked him, enjoying himself far too much.

Sam didn't waste a second, breathing, "You own it."

"A-plus," replied Kurt. The pad of his middle finger drifted over Sam's hole, feeling the tightly-gathered pucker of it. "How 'bout this, Sam? Is it mine, too?"

"Yes," Sam blurted emphatically.

"Yeah? Your hole belongs to me?"

"Yes!"

"I can play with it all I want, hm. How does that feel?"

"Good – I – I want to be all yours," his sub said, pulling at his restraints and whimpering.

"Aren't you sweet," Kurt said brightly, and took his hand away again.

He could feel Sam's confusion at the shift of attentions, but it was forgotten when he reached back up to gently push Sam's jock aside.

Freed, his entire stiff shaft and balls leaned heavily, flushed and flustered. Kurt wanted to see the whole package, touch everything without the webby cotton in the way. He wrapped his fingers around Sam's hard-on – and seriously, it filled up his hand so hotly, thick and rigid and on edge, that Kurt had to take a deep breath and tell himself to calm down. Looking at his sub's cock tower in his hand, Kurt could hardly believe he had any sense of patience and restraint when it came to touching Sam like this. He wanted to pump this pretty meat till all the come Sam had been holding back for him was shooting up his abs, copious and wet.

With gentle deliberation, he stroked Sam's cock and listened to him gasp for air, knowing that behind that sleep mask, he was also torn, wanting to come – like any guy, a slave to his own drive. But as a slave for Kurt, he had a drive and a need that clashed completely with his libido.

Already wet at the tip, his dick let out a slow drip of sweet, clear precome that slipped between Kurt's fingers and made each squeeze of his fingers smack. His shaft was growing impossibly harder.

He finally gasped out, "Stop! Please!"

Responsive, Kurt dropped his dick immediately. It flopped, heavy and shining with its own need, against Sam's waistband, so gorgeous, and Sam arched off the mattress hard, every muscle in his body just as on edge as his cock. He looked about one wrong twitch from blowing, and Kurt wildly wondered if he might actually start shooting at any second.

After a few suspended seconds, Sam slumped, letting out a high-pitched noise of relief.

"Good boy," Kurt whispered, relieved for him. Personally, he would probably get a deep thrill out of it if Sam was so aroused and needy that he was utterly unable to keep from coming despite trying not to, but he knew Sam would likely feel like he'd committed some kind of crime. Maybe someday, when Sam was much more secure in his place, Kurt could play with him till he was pushing him over that boundary – 

Because, God, he loved playing with Sam like this, just jerking him off. It was such a familiar feeling, it made him feel close to Sam just as a fellow guy, and it was so hot just to touch another guy's dick, let alone be the master of it. Quinn not wanting to go all the way, he could get; why on earth would she not want to stroke Sam's dick till he was coming for her – or trying his hardest not to? Kurt was practically purring as he watched clear precome slide off Sam's knob and onto his belly.

He ran the tip of his middle finger along a vein bulging along the back of Sam's cock, but Sam jerked and blurted, "Fuck, please, I'm still too close!"

"You haven't come since last week, have you, honey," Kurt murmured. "I'll give you a little break. Don't worry."

The breath Sam let out sounded equal parts comforted and frustrated.

Sighing with pleasure, Kurt shifted one knee over Sam's and eased himself down at Sam's side, as he had become quickly accustomed to doing in the soft room and now liked to do so much. Sam's face turned towards his. Now that he was closer, the red flush of Sam's cheeks and neck were so apparent, especially since Sam felt about as hot as a sidewalk in the summer sun. He bet the satin of the mask was burning against his sub's face with all that blushing, peaking body heat it caught and reflected.

"I am very proud to call you my sub," Kurt told him as he slid his knee along Sam's and then pinned it down. "You look so sexy all tied up, trying so hard not to come, cock so boned and wet."

Sam groaned, short and tight, and Kurt could see his cock jumping at the mention.

Totally the cat that ate the canary, Kurt luxuriated, gazing at Sam's half-naked body and listening to his huffing breaths as he powered through them. Before they showed any signs of truly slowing down, Sam panted, "Please, I wish you would let me service you, Kurt. I can feel you're hard."

"Oh – well, that sounds like an official birthday wish to me," Kurt said, nuzzling Sam's cheek.

"Birthday wish. And unbirthday wish."

"You're really sweet-talking me into it," Kurt whispered right in his ear.

"Please, Kurt," Sam responded, lowering his voice to the level of Kurt's. "Please. I'll do anything. I don't – have to come – I would rather – you come than me."

"Mmm," Kurt hummed, the complete rumble of it deeper than his voice usually wanted to go. "You really want to, don't you."

"More than anything!"

"Last night just whet your appetite, didn't it. You want to be given your master's come..."

"Y – yes – but –"

"But you'd love servicing my dick, even if I didn't let you have my come."

"Yes," Sam whispered, his cock lifting right off his belly in a needy strain.

"When I got home last night after visiting you on your break, I practically ripped my pants open, threw myself right down here –" Kurt nudged Sam's leg with his foot, "– and jacked off thinking about your mouth on me. Your soft lips. Your hot tongue. I thought about you having to get through the rest of your shift when I know all you wanted to do was suck me off. I thought about you going home and curling up in your little sleeping bag, dreaming about getting to have my dick in your mouth again..."

Sam had gone rigid as a steel beam. He didn't even breathe as Kurt eased himself over, straddling his waist easily, with Sam unable to do anything but lie there under him, straps making him unable to touch Kurt and body so clenched Kurt could practically feel him hoping and wishing. It was such a powerful feeling that Kurt just enjoyed it for a few moments, cradling one of Sam's cheeks in his palm and kissing the other gently. Then he straightened and unfastened his jeans, his deep intake of breath at his cock getting jostled by the motions nothing compared to Sam's excited groan.

"Yes – please – Kurt –"

"Listen to me, Sam," Kurt said calmly, thumbing his suspenders down his arms one by one. "I'm going to let you have my cock in your mouth."

Sam squeaked.

"And I'm gonna untie one of your hands so you can help get it in there just how you want it. But only one hand. You're not getting out from under me, you're not peeking, and you're not touching yourself. You're just helping me."

"Please," Sam let out under his breath.

"Are you gonna behave for me, Sam?"

"Yes – God – thank you."

"That's my good sub," Kurt murmured, leaning and managing to unfasten the strap on his right – freeing Sam's left cuff.

Clumsily, Sam groped for him, his arm even more gawky and uncoordinated than usual.

For a moment they both were just fumbling, Kurt with his jeans and Sam with blindly trying to figure out what was where and what he could do to get his hand on Kurt. His fingers managed to find the waistband of Kurt's underwear, pulling it down insistently enough that the boxer-briefs slid right down his hips. Kurt moaned under his breath, shivering through the feel of Sam baring him and his cock snapping up, rigid. He kneed forward, finding balance with one hand on his mounted headboard as Sam desperately strained up off the pillow. Sam's hand found Kurt's dick and lead it into his mouth as soon as he could.

The sensation was like a physical wallop.

Not at all prepared for how it felt – how _he_ felt, straddling Sam's chest to be serviced – Kurt let out a harsh half-shout. On his knees, with Sam's biceps and chest right underneath him, he felt like he was pinning his sub. Even though he wasn't really putting any weight on him, he was so turned on by it he couldn't even think.

Sam going down on him so eagerly just doubled the feeling. He'd worked Sam right up into his usual frenzy, but right then, Sam unabashedly plunging him into clinging heat and sucking like crazy just completely fit, like their headspaces were two interlocking pieces.

The absolute confidence that this was what Sam wanted, too, spurred him to reach down and grip Sam's hair.

"Good boy," he breathed, getting another punch just saying the words. "God, Sam."

Sam slurped around him, simultaneously clumsy and expert. His hand was doing what his mouth couldn't, just by virtue of holding him and helping to feed his cock in by pulling it with warm, eager fingers. Kurt had never felt anything so amazing in his life, which was saying something, since Sam had serviced him several times now. But each time had proven successively better. Sam was either as much of a natural as his lips apparently suggested, or extremely tuned in on some kind of subby level, remembering what had gotten him praise before and eager to try and earn praise again.

Also, Kurt was the dick service equivalent of a cheap date. No matter what Sam did, it didn't take much for him to feel overwhelmed. He was nearly on the verge immediately, gut coiling its tightest, but he caught himself, clenching his jaw, and forced himself to take a deep breath, the calming kind he often had Sam take. He was not ready for this to end. He wanted to tease Sam a little – he couldn't help it – but the pleasure was just about soul-deep.

He looked down, saw Sam's red lips wrapped around him and his head jerking, frantic but ecstatic, and that mask over Sam's eyes.

"Easy," he groaned, fingers smoothing from the way they'd clawed into Sam's thick locks.

"Mm," Sam answered, humming short but low around his dick. The noise vibrated right into Kurt's balls.

"Easy... easy, Sam..." Kurt repeated. "There's no timer today, sweetie. I won't take it away from you."

Breaths panting short from his nose, Sam obeyed, slowing his roll and moaning to Kurt in a vulnerable way that made it sound like he was sorry and pitifully aroused at the same time.

"Yeah... this time I'm gonna let you have my come," Kurt said indulgently, listening to his sub's restraints clink with a jerk of excitement.

The rhythm Sam settled into was more careful, although Kurt had trouble finding it any less intense; Sam's mouth was too eager to be anything other than perfect.

"You're so good at this," Kurt told him, breaths heavy and sighing.

Sam responded with several little whimpers that Kurt could only hear as pleading as he serviced with some effort, head up off the pillow, trying to pace himself and trying to improve his angle, and above all, trying to please Kurt.

Eventually, he slowed even more, and Kurt instinctively moved to clutch the back of Sam's skull, allowing Sam to relax his neck a little. His tongue caressed Kurt's knob coaxingly, and Kurt tipped his hips, sliding himself into that wide-open mouth that was just waiting for him. Somehow that felt insane, criminally good, chasing his own pleasure – taking pleasure from his sub, however willing and happy he was to be giving Kurt that pleasure. He heard himself sighing with heat and kept going, even though he was taking the action from Sam. He couldn't fight off the instinctive urge to fill that hungry, accommodating mouth. Possessiveness washed over him in hot waves that felt every bit as good as his cock sliding in Sam's lips, and Sam yielded readily to him, following the pace with his hand stroking encouragingly.

Then, as if submitting to his Dom even further, Sam's fingers slid from around his dick to touch at his hip gingerly, letting Kurt simply have his mouth.

With the entire blow job abruptly in Kurt's control, he went taut from knee to shoulder, drawing the dreamy sway of his hips to a pause.

He ached, insides burning up, aroused like a reflex in him was getting incessantly jammed, but something in him was afraid he'd overwhelm Sam, make him gag or choke, if he wasn't careful... even though he was dying to just take what Sam was giving him. Shame filled him for even vaguely thinking of losing control like that. Kurt flattered himself that he gave everything he wanted to do to Sam some consideration, but even so, he'd already wound up doing so much he hadn't foreseen himself doing in the heat of the moment, and he wanted things he wasn't entirely comfortable with wanting, and in a way, he was still getting used to letting Sam service him in the first place.

It was his job to use Sam, but not abuse him, Kurt reminded himself, squeezing the sweaty hair along the back of Sam's neck. Being a responsible Dom was an absolute honor. It was his place to pay close attention both to his sub and to himself. It was his privilege. The control Sam was readily giving him, the obvious surrender – Sam trusted him, and that made Kurt bigger than he was, better than he was.

A rush of confidence tripped his trigger, powering his hips back into motion.

Kurt was rewarded with his sub letting out a sweet, groany sigh as he carefully pumped his cock past those perfect lips.

As steady as he'd jacked Sam's cock, Kurt held him by the back of the head and fucked his mouth, watching carefully and gaining fluency in what he was doing with every successful thrust of his hips. He wasn't going too far. His sub could breathe and his mouth was open for it, cheeks hollowing gently as he sucked. And Sam was touching him, his big hand wandering from Kurt's hip, curious. He identified the buttons marching up Kurt's denim shirt, stylishly off-center, and learned the gentle curve of Kurt's abs, touching him with a familiar reverence but also with that sense of palpable trust. Meanwhile his tongue flipped and flicked around Kurt's knob, the spectacularly wet noises that resulted making the blow job sound much sloppier than Kurt was actually allowing.

When Sam's hand fell from him entirely, it was to grope up at the corner of the mattress and cling to the strap it found lying there.

Kurt stiffened again from the knee up when he realized Sam was repositioning himself as if he was still tied down, coming on the spot with an involuntary cry.

He tried to halt his hips as he shot his load right into Sam's mouth, but he couldn't keep from quaking rigidly. Sam just snuffled and grunted, holding obediently still Kurt filled his mouth with fresh, hot come.

The shudder that left Kurt as soon as he'd emptied himself was massive, goose bumps rushing over his skin. His hand felt inarticulate and shaky as he reached down and popped his cock from Sam's overly-wet mouth, not wanting Sam to just choke on everything.

Arching, Sam tried to follow his cock, wanting to cling but losing Kurt's knob from between his lips.

A strand of jizz slipped past Sam's upper lip, clinging at the head of his cock and quivering in the air before it broke and landed on Sam's damp chin, and Kurt flinched against an aftershock, dick still fully twitching in his hand and orgasm still fresh in all his cells.

"Show it to me," he whispered, hearing his own utterly demanding tone.

Slumping back, Sam tilted his chin up and opened his mouth. Kurt's come stuck in thick strands between his upper and lower canines and coated the inside of his lips, white but bubbled with spit. It all slid rapidly to the back of his mouth, and Kurt thought he might gag or swallow it reflexively, but instead Sam pushed his wide, stressed tongue out several times as Kurt waited and watched, forcing the load out on the tip. Each time, he managed to keep from letting it down his throat, even though it just slid right back there again, heavy and slippery.

The exhale Kurt finally let out dragged as if over gravel, rough. "That's a good boy. You earned every bit of that mouthful."

Sam shut his mouth tight, but opened it again with the soft smacking of his lips and tongue and all that come sticking between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. It was unbelievably wet. The exaggerated curve of Sam's Cupid's bow, tight on top and wide on bottom, stretched before his eyes, looking sensitive and puffy and gorgeous. Kurt watched Sam's tongue curl under his teeth and push jizz around, watched him close and open his mouth again, and realized he was – messing with it. Maybe curiously, or displaying it for Kurt, or just basking in it, or something else equally hot that made Kurt want to just preen. Having a mouth full of come, he now knew from personal experience, was definitely a lot more than just having the taste of it on your tongue. He had liked tasting Sam's in his mouth, but the texture and taste were both unlike anything else.

"You should feel like a very good sub with all that come in your mouth," Kurt told him. "You got to service your master, and look how good you did. And look how good you are at showing it to me. Do you want to swallow my come?"

Sam nodded, letting out a breathy grunt. It no longer surprised him that Sam did, indeed, want to, even if he found it strange and amazing.

"Swallow."

He watched Sam gulp, having to take it in a couple of goes but otherwise making it look effortless.

"Let me see your mouth now," Kurt commanded, scritching Sam's scalp.

Sam opened up for him again immediately, tipping his head back and laying his clean pink tongue flat over his lower lip. Besides the white smear on his chin, there wasn't even a trace of spunk.

"Perfect," Kurt told him.

Deemed satisfactory, Sam flattened his lips together, rolled his tongue clumsily over them, and breathed with shaky sincerity, "Thank you, Kurt."

"You're welcome," replied Kurt, feeling Sam's chest lift in a responsive, aroused swell between his thighs. It made him chuckle indulgently as he hitched his boxers back up, cock still half-hard.

He quickly discovered he really didn't have the energy to tuck his shirt in and stuff all over again, so he just eased his jeans up and hung on to his headboard as he de-straddled his half-naked sub, suspenders hanging loose at his hips.

All over again, he was struck by the sight of Sam's body, knees hitched and cock arcing out of his jock, red and hard as it could possibly be, his torso on total display and his arms uselessly flattened to the mattress. He wasn't even attached on the left side, but his left hand was fisting the strap tightly all the same. The neat halo of confetti was significantly less neat, particularly where Kurt had trod, but Sam was utterly unaware of it. He couldn't know anything other than what he could immediately feel or hear and discern for himself. His jaw and cheek were shiny with spit that had rolled from the corner of his mouth.

"Aren't you precious," Kurt said lightly, and reattached the strap to his cuff with a simple click. Then he affectionately wiped Sam's chin clean with one thumb, watching the side of Sam's mouth tweak in that half-smile, and sighed deeply as Sam rolled his head and cleaned his thumb off for him in a couple of warm licks against the pad. "That's a good boy. You sit tight, sweet seventeen. I'll be right back."

Wanting more than anything to just take a snooze using his sub as a pillow, Kurt eased himself off his bed, casting admiring glances back at Sam as he buttoned his jeans. He felt like a Peanut cartoon with pink hearts throbbing in the air above his head. Really, if it was a competition between him and Finn, he was the Sally Browniest.

Other than his controlling need to pull himself together after doing something like fucking his sub's face and the vague desire to clean that sweet face up, Kurt had no real reason to back away – just instinct. At his vanity, Kurt wiped his hands clean with a moist towelette, then returned to Sam's side to wipe off Sam's chin and the left side of his face, cleaning any tacky residue off.

"Thanks," Sam uttered.

"You're welcome, angel," said Kurt, giving his cheek a tender pinch.

Then he lazily stretched and prepared to finally finish putting up streamers, giving Sam a chance to squirm for him some more.

However, Sam lay still, his head tilted towards Kurt but not fidgeting like before. He panted softly, low strains of voice touching his breaths here and there. He didn't even pull at his restraints, seeming content to lie in wait and rest. While the mask covering his eyes certainly helped keep Sam in the dark (literally, judging by what Sam had said), it made Kurt wonder what was going on in his head, too. Maybe nothing. Maybe he was floating in subspace, hypnotized.

It took Kurt a few minutes to catch his toes moving. It wasn't a twitch or a wriggle so much as a lengthy toe-stretch followed by a curl that crinkled his gold-toed sock right underneath his toes. The curl lingered, too, then relaxed – then his toes spread and stretched all over again.

Soon, it became slow, rhythmic flexing all the way up Sam's leg. Kurt could see his butt tighten against the mattress and his pelvis lift minutely, heavily-leaning half-hard cock pushing into the air. Though Kurt was watching, he didn't think Sam was trying to make his body look good – it seemed much more like that compulsive wiggling he'd seen Sam do before, the kind that made him look like he was restless and maybe really needed to take a leak. This time it was sinewy and languid and dreamy, Sam's hips rolling like his body was feeling something from the toes up.

Kurt didn't miss it when Sam's elbow bent; the clink of the fastener in his D-ring wouldn't have let him. It was loud in the otherwise calm and quiet room.

Sam sighed, then, deep and pleasurable, shoulders hitching and wrists tugging sensuously.

"Are you ready to be untied, honey?" asked Kurt.

Breathing out another downright sexy breath, Sam shook his head. It looked a bit like he was trying to nuzzle his cheek into the pillow.

"Shoulder's okay? Arms not hurting?"

Sam gave another sleepy shake of his head. Satisfied, Kurt rounded the bed to check the time on his vanity. If glee rehearsal had gone on as scheduled, they'd still have nearly fifteen minutes to go of suggesting lyrics for Rachel to shoot down and bitching over who got what solo line or harmony.

"Okay, sweetie. Then I'm gonna keep you tied up right there while I do my French homework."

That got a pause, followed by a deep lift of Sam's chest.

"'Kay," he then uttered in a small way.

"Spread your legs," Kurt said, watching the small delay before Sam processed the directions and spread for him, bare knees popping up and tipping open.

Kurt reached between them and gave Sam's strong inner thigh a caress, and, as Sam's bare behind was currently cozied up to his bedspread, he followed the fondle to his gracilis by giving it a domineering smack.

Sam tensed right up, sucking in a startled breath, and he quickly opened up even further, giving Kurt access to even more skin.

"Good boy," Kurt told him, easing his palm in another warm rub to Sam's thigh. After a pause, he landed another slap right over the same skin, smiling as Sam's dick perked before his very eyes. "That's a good sub. You can wiggle all you want. Maybe when I finish my work, I'll play with your dick some more. I can tell it wants more attention. Would you like that?"

"Yes," Sam whispered.

"Mm, good. I'd love to stroke you till you're ready to come again. But you know what, birthday boy?" Kurt's palm clapped against Sam's thigh, only the threat of another slap, but it made Sam shudder sensitively and moan for him, clearly at attention. "You don't get to come till I say. You're going to spend your birthday being my obedient little sub. You might be going home and having your birthday dinner with your family, but inside you'll just be waiting and waiting and waiting. You'll spend your whole seventeenth birthday waiting for your Dom to let you come."

 

*

 

Kurt spent far longer than he meant to playing around with Sam, teasing him physically as well as playfully.

He did his French homework, humming "Sixteen Going On Seventeen," and rewarded himself between conjugations with long looks at his sub floating and flexing in his own special world.

He got devious and pulled _The Catcher in the Rye_ out of Sam's backpack, curled up beside him, and read a chapter of it out loud to him while caressing his dick to full, ripe hardness again. Every so often he paused and demanded Sam tell him what Holden Caulfield was griping about, forcing him to pay attention even as he totally distracted him. He had to turn a page back and start over a couple of times, and he could tell Sam was trying even though he was overwhelmed.

At the end of the chapter, he had Sam open his legs again and slapped the insides of his thighs a bit with the book, just playing with him. He even prodded gently at Sam's balls with the book's spine, at which point Sam seemed to utterly go under and lose touch with anything other than withstanding the fact that his Dom was prodding at his junk with his English novel. His responses fell into less-than-coherent noises that came in slow-motion. He writhed on the bed right against Kurt, against the book, without even seeming cognizant of the fact that he was gone, stripped down to nothing but his sub soul. He squirmed and moaned in a soft monotone for several minutes, even after Kurt tossed the book aside, responding to gentle pets like they were exquisite torture he could barely withstand.

There was nothing in the world like seeing his sub get so lost. It was exciting, but the excitement was both fueled and muted by a vast sense of fulfilled calm. It should have been impossible for Kurt to feel so connected to him when he seemed like he had left the building, but he was manning the tether that allowed Sam float away so far in the first place, and that feeling in itself was almost the apex of everything Kurt felt he was meant to be and do with Sam.

Eventually Sam broke surface and rejoined Kurt's time stream, muttering his name repeatedly. Kurt tucked him back into his jock and pulled his jeans up again, replying to his muzzy sub with sweet nothings and asking him questions to help him slowly focus.

By the time Kurt unfastened the straps from his Sam's cuffs, the room full of birthday decorations wasn't high on his list of things he was paying attention to. Actually, he'd kind of forgotten how many he'd put up, since he'd been paying so much attention to Sam while he'd been decorating.

When Kurt lifted Holly Golightly mask from around his mussed hair and Sam laid fresh, unsuspecting eyes on the balloons, he seemed confused. He stared around the room for so long and with such an uncomprehending gaze that Kurt actually began to worry that something about the decor had just totally destroyed his Dom game. There was an absolutely gross amount of streamers.

"Um, I know your jersey number's six," Kurt finally said, as Sam stared at his hand-lettered sign that said _Evans is #17!_ – he'd done his best to capture the look of the sign a Titans fan would wave around in the bleachers. The other _Happy Birthday, Playa_ banner was from the party section of the craft store, glittery silver and gold grill-style lettering on black plastic, and Kurt had found it too funny not to get, but it did seem super random now, with everything else being so cohesively rah-rah-sis-boom-bah.

"Is this for me," Sam said after a long pause.

"Well. You wouldn't let me decorate for your bowling party, and I didn't know if you'd let me decorate your locker, either, so voilà," said Kurt, reaching out to help him sit up. "I told you my room was full of balloons and confetti."

He watched warily as Sam shook his head once, like he couldn't understand. He looked at the confetti blankly. Kurt wondered if maybe he'd actually forgotten it was his birthday.

"Did I mention you have some stuff to open before you go?"

"But," Sam said. "You already – I didn't... want anything."

"Oh, they're no big deal," Kurt assured him quickly. "Actually, they're kinda stupid. Never mind. You don't have to open them."

Sam shook his head again. "... They're not stupid."

"Nah, they're lame."

"I know they're not."

"You don't even know what they are! They could be lame. Are you weirded out? You look weirded out."

"No. I. Dunno what t'say."

"I just got kinda carried away! I tend to do that. You might have noticed."

"You already give me everything, just being my Dom," said Sam unexpectedly. "I know whatever you got me is awesome, just like all this is so awesome and the cake planets were awesome and you taking everybody bowling was awesome. I just – I only want to serve you... I don't need stuff."

"I know," admitted Kurt, reaching for Sam's hand.

It became clear as he took it that it didn't matter if Sam was technically untied – he was still in a completely submissive headspace. He had no doubt that if he wanted to, he could push Sam back down and take him right back to Paradise City again instantly, and that was a really glorious idea, but he needed to exercise self-control and drop Sam off to his family's motel soon so they could have their birthday dinner with him. He knew Sam was looking forward to indulging in a hot dog.

Trying to purify his thoughts, he said, "I'm honored. Being your Dom means a lot to me. I just wanted to celebrate, and I really wanted to make a big deal out of it, because, well, that's the way I am. But also, you mean a lot to me. Not just as my sub, Sam. You're a big deal in my life. I'd throw you a party every week, if it were up to me. But if it truly bothers you that I got you something and it's something that would weigh on you, I – I don't want to make you feel like I'm not listening to you. I'll return it, no further protests. I don't want my sub to resent me."

"I wouldn't ever resent you, Kurt," Sam said, extremely heartfelt and naïve.

"You might, though," Kurt returned, thinking of Quinn. "I'm hoping that if we're always honest, we won't give each other anything to resent or regret."

"Honestly, I just want... you to be happy," said Sam, shaking his head and lowering his gaze. "If you want me to have something, of course I'll take it. I have everything you've ever given me. I wish I could give you something."

"Well, hey. My birthday's in three weeks."

Sam's eyes went round, making the fact that he was staring off into nothingness look extra funny. "It is?"

"Yep. And maybe for my birthday, you'll let me give you your birthday present."

"Um. Okay. I'm starting to think I better let you give me a present," said Sam.

"Thank you!" crowed Kurt, happily leaping off the bed and rounding it for his hope chest. Sam seemed incredibly relieved that he didn't produce a huge, heavy shopping bag packed with clothes the likes of which Quinn had given him. One was just a modest-sized blue gift bag, and the other was a small, slender rectangle wrapped in silver paper and blue ribbon, and they both fit in a single hand with ease. He thrust the smaller present at Sam. "This one first!"

"Thanks," Sam said softly, untying the ribbon with a sheepish smile. Kurt shut his trunk, then stood there importantly, watching him pry the shiny paper open and turn over a simple light-weight picture frame. In it, Kurt had put a copy of one of the pictures he and Sam had taken together a couple of weeks ago. It was the one where Sam had on his clean, beautiful toothpaste ad grin.

"I made one for myself and I thought you might like one, too," said Kurt. "You can stand it up traditionally, or take the stand off and stick it inside your locker. It's got magnets in the back."

"Thanks," Sam repeated, more earnestly, running his thumbs along the frame.

"You're welcome," beamed Kurt. He waved the bag in a tempting back-and-forth in front of Sam's face till Sam took it from him.

"My mom might like it," said Sam. He obediently settled the gift in his lap, still looking at the framed photo.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, she's a mom, so. She likes pictures."

"Oh. Right!" Kurt nodded. He was sort of the person who insisted on photo ops in his house. "Maybe she'll like this, too, then."

"Is it macaroni art?"

That got a chuckle out of Kurt. He watched Sam, who looked curious despite all the objection, paw through the tissue paper in his gift bag and pull out a box that managed to look small in his hands.

"Fujifilm," he mouthed, examining it.

"It's an Instax Mini," Kurt said. He couldn't tell whether Sam knew what he was holding or not. "It's like a little Polaroid instant camera. The picture pops out of the top. You don't have to get it developed or anything."

"A camera?" repeated Sam. There was a picture of the little square camera on the front of the box, its ultra-smooth facade white and rounded.

"I know real pictures are kind of old-school," Kurt said, "but until you get your iPhone back, I thought it'd be fun if you wanted to take pictures and just have them immediately. You could put them in your locker, too, or save them and put them in an album someday, or give them to your mom, if that's what you want..."

There was a pause as Sam held the box in his hands, just looking at it in a vacant way.

"This is awesome," he said, turning his big eyes up at Kurt. "I knew it would be."

"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah. It's cool," said Sam with a lopsided smile. "It looks like you."

"It does? With my one eye and deathly white skin?" Kurt gave him an exaggerated wink.

"It looks like something you'd pick out," Sam clarified. "It's cool like you."

"Oh! You think I'm cool?"

Sam shook his head, and said with a profound seriousness, "You're so awesome, Kurt. Thanks for – this stuff. Thanks for... everything. I'm not... saying it right. I dunno how to thank you. I just – love it so much."

Thrilled, Kurt said, "You're so welcome, sweetie! Happy birthday."

 

*

 

When Kurt walked into school the next day, Sam was waiting by his Dom's cracked-open locker, his little white camera held up to his eye. He appeared to be just casually peering around at random, maybe looking for a good subject, and when he spotted Kurt in front of him, he grinned and there was a flash.

"Hey, you could have let me fix my hair," Kurt complained good-naturedly, blinking away the spots in his vision.

"Your hair looks good," Sam countered, invested in his film sliding out. His own hair was hanging down in his eyes. Kurt bit down on a smug smile as he reached into his messenger bag to unload a couple of books. "You didn't tell me there were six extra packages of film in the bag."

"Oh, were there?" Kurt said innocently. "Good. Extra film means if that picture looks anything like my driver's license photo, you have to agree to destroy it."

"And destroy my proof that ghosts are for real?"

Even though the joke was at his expense, Kurt cracked and giggled; Sam's deadpan made him seem totally serious, but the slow smile he tucked down made his gratification at earning that laugh obvious.

Besides some goggles from _Muckraker_ readers in the hallway and cafeteria, Kurt's day went extremely well, predominantly because Sam was in an enraptured sort of mood from the get-go.

To Kurt's pleasure, he seemed extremely taken with his Instax Mini. He put his picture of Kurt walking towards him (and, yes, looking like the grim reaper, if the grim reaper wore stylishly long sweaters and knee-high boots) up with a guitar-shaped magnet in his locker, then asked Kurt to take another picture with him. Ms. Pillsbury, who was trotting by with her purse over her shoulder, was flagged down and seemed as pleased to oblige Sam as Kurt was. Sam walked Kurt to French, gazed at him with big adoring eyes as Kurt gave his cheek a goodbye caress, then went off to his first class clutching the picture.

There was more picture-taking at lunch. Sam took a picture of the fruit kabobs Kurt assembled for him as well as individual pictures of Mike and Tina. Then he directed them into a picture together, which he gave to them to keep. He even asked Mike to take another picture of him with Kurt. Kurt was honestly trying not to look as smug as he did in the picture, but he really could not help his smirk and his arched brow and his real pleasure at Sam using his film to capture them together. Mercedes and Brittany came to sit with them, so Sam took pictures of them, too, and arranged his growing collection on the table in front of him like he was curating a glee club exhibit while gnawing pieces of fruit off his kabobs.

Kurt wasn't sure he'd ever seen Sam quite so focused and content. It was almost weird. Not that there was something bizarre about his sub being wrapped up in something rather than tired and distracted, but if anything, Kurt had expected that Sam might have a difficult day after the ups and downs and ups again of his birthday – or perhaps a "blurry" day, after being denied release.

When it had been time to take Sam home last night, Sam had gone weak at the knees, staggering at the foot of the stairs. Kurt had him sit on the staircase, fetched him a bottle of water, and watched him tip his head back and drain it like a football player benched on the sidelines. He admitted he got light-headed, but maintained that his shoulder didn't hurt at all and that he was good to go.

Then Sam hadn't called him on his break. Kurt had called him, but the call went to voice mail. He figured Sam must have been preoccupied with work or birthday stuff or both, or forgotten his phone. He had pushed Sam enough times now to know that when he was feeling particularly submissive, he was also particularly distracted.

Kurt was hardly an expert in Sam's thought processes, though. After yesterday's little Throwdown Showdown in glee, Sam had looked like a deer in headlights, almost manic even though he didn't move a muscle after he'd obediently parked it. Everyone had been startled, though. Tina and Mercedes had called Kurt so they could get the latest on Finn (who hadn't come home till curfew, successfully evading Kurt's attempts to corner and lecture him) and the three had talked about it all for at least an hour. He almost expected people to be jumping down Sam's throat about the blind item or for Finn to try and get in a punch somewhere, but nobody from glee said anything at all, and Sam seemed like he'd totally forgotten about it.

Naturally, a comment came from Azimio during study hall, but it was just a warning to Sam not to get Quinn knocked up 'cause McKinley didn't want no pregnant prom queen, and the scoff on Sam's face afterwards was actually priceless.

The rest of the class, Sam drew tic-tac-toe grids and enticed Kurt into games by scooting the paper at him and smiling the cutest, dreamiest smile Kurt had ever been on the receiving end of. He wrote _please?_ or drew a smiley face followed by a question mark if Kurt didn't immediately move to put down an X, and Kurt gave in every time.

Study hall was always a time Kurt looked forward to – it was the most time he had in person with his sub over the course of a school day. They always ate together now, but the lunch hour was brief and they shared the time with Mike and Tina and Kurt always made sure Sam had something good to eat. They also were both in glee, but they tended to be reserved with each other in there, or were otherwise busy singing and dancing. Depending on the teacher covering the period, which changed every week or two, sometimes study hall was a talkative free period. Sometimes it was quiet and most people really were studying or working.

Either way, Kurt usually wound up domming Sam in some way. He'd lay Sam's homework out for him. He'd help Sam if he needed it, and Sam would often finish something up and touch Kurt's sleeve to show him it was done, and Kurt would check his work. Sometimes he'd have Sam forgo the homework and put his head down the table, and he'd let Sam zone out or sleep. If the teacher was more on the laid-back side, he'd rub Sam's back gently or fuss with his hair with a pretty immense feeling of satisfaction at getting some mild P.D.D. in front of any other kid who might be watching. Sometimes he and Sam watched music videos on his phone. Sometimes Kurt wound up talking about something totally stupid that went over Sam's head, like all the reasons why he still watched _Gossip Girl_ even though it was so bad. But Sam always listened anyway, and waited for directions.

He couldn't remember a single study hall where his sub had attentively devoted the entire fifty-minute period to flirting and playing with him.

 

*

 

In glee that afternoon, a familiar tiny blonde woman with a great spray tan was perched at the piano.

"Well hey, there, cutesy-buttons!" she said when she saw Kurt.

"April!"

"The one and only!" she beamed.

"What are you doing here?" Kurt asked, accepting an enthusiastic hug from her. Unsurprisingly, smelled like Captain Morgan's. "I thought you were on Broadway!"

"Oh, Broadway and I got intimately acquainted. We were livin' in sin for a while, but the sex got boring and the bills came due, so I was like, 'Catch you later, Broadway – I hear the bright lights of Lima and I just gotta smell me that ol' 'Stix stinkwater again!'"

Kurt felt his brow knit as he tried to figure out why that sounded weird to him, but snapped out of it under the insistent patter of April tapping him on the chest with a rolled-up piece of sheet music.

"Hey, now! Those muscle mags did you a _world_ of good! What'd you do, order him from the back?"

She was staring at Sam, who was right behind him, completely clueless.

"April, you haven't met my sub," Kurt was all too happy to announce, pulling Sam forward.

"Oh, lordy," she said appreciatively.

Sam stuck his hand out, offering a shake, but April just looked up at Sam with a coy smile.

"Don't remember you from the showers. And I'd remember you," she said, touching the roll of sheet music to his arm and gazing at the tall cuff on his wrist. It was somehow a weirdly sexual caress, not altogether different than how Kurt had touched his arm the previous day. "Fresh meat, eh?"

Kurt took Sam's hand and pulled it down to their sides, slightly proprietary, but kept his introduction bright. "April, this is Sam. Sam, April. She was in glee club for a week last year and gave me my first adult beverage. She's the reason I abstain and therefore way may well be responsible for my clear head the night I took you home with me. She's also the reason our auditorium is called the 'April Rhodes Civic Pavilion.'"

"Wow, you're the April from the auditorium?" Sam asked, appropriately awed.

"Mm-hmm! The rich old pile of adult diapers I was tickling with my cat-o-nine up and croaked, leaving me a little cold hard ca-ching, so I decided it'd be fun to buy y'all a little somethin' nice. No biggie," she said, reaching out and pulling the zip on Sam's striped hoodie down an inch or two.

"Please say you're re-opening Rinky Dinks," Kurt said eagerly. "It'd be the perfect place to have my birthday party."

"Aw, I don't think so, kiddo. But what I am going to do is help Mr. Schuester with his lesson today. You like lessons, Pufnstuf? I got plenty of 'em up my sleeve, but I bet I can break you in one."

"Ooookay, that's enough of that," said Kurt, steering Sam away. "Let's sit down."

"You look like a crier," said April cheerily.

 

*

 

At 9:24, while Kurt was busily putting together outfit options, his phone rang. For the smallest second, his heart actually lifted in his chest, but it wasn't Sam's ringtone. It was only Tina. He picked up anyway.

"Hey, Tina. What's up?"

"I feel like I should tell you something," she began, but stopped.

Although he detected something apologetic about her tone, Kurt's mind was still on leather shorts.

"If this is about Brittany and Artie breaking up, Mercedes beat you to the punch."

"No, it's not that."

Kurt waited impatiently, finally prompting, "So? What is it?"

"I know we've all had enough drama lately..."

"Suspense effectively built, Tina."

"And I know you don't like J.B.I.'s gossip blog –"

"Oh, ugh."

" – but there's some stuff about you on it."

"Me? Oh, finally, my day in the sun has arrived. I hope it's a 'Who Wore It Better?' scarf-off between me and Lenny Kravitz."

"There's stuff about Sam and Quinn, too, I think. I just thought I should warn you. Now that J.B.I.'s working on the _Muckraker_ , all this stuff is probably going to wind up in the next issue."

"And what lies did Jacob Ben Israel post about Sam?" Kurt asked casually, his sense of worry for his sub's private life bigger than his distaste for Jacob's ludicrous online sanctuary where no one could downvote him or mark his comments as spam.

"There's a bunch of blind items, but they're all ridiculously obvious. 'For those keeping score at home, this former QB was spotted crossing the lines with two former Cheerios at Lima Lanes. Any way you frame it, he's split between Dommes.'"

"... All right, J.B.I.'s pun game is on-point," said Kurt, "but quarterback? Two Cheerios? That's so vague. How do you know it's not alluding to Finn?"

"Because it says 'Not Finn Hudson.' Here's another one: 'Which Belieber is so promiscuously submissive he serves multiple Doms?' A male Belieber, Kurt. Who else could it be?"

"It's still pure garbage," he scoffed.

"I know, but if you go through past columns, you find all the stuff that was in yesterday's _Muckraker_. J.B.I.'s had items on Santana since the inception of his blog, and his archives are like a whole keg of salaciousness he can tap for wider readership in the newspaper."

"Well, I'm not worried," Kurt declared archly, ixnaying leather shorts. They were more of a late autumn/early winter look. "Jacob Ben Israel is not a reliable source of information about anything. No one reads his site, and no one reads the paper."

"There's a couple of items about you and Blaine," Tina said. "It looks like you guys have gone on some clandestine dates?"

"They're not clandestine – or dates! We're friends! We just grab coffee after school once or twice a week!"

"I believe you, but... between the Sam and Quinn stuff and the you and Blaine stuff... it looks kinda bad."

"Tina, I'll call you back."

"Okay. Sorry, Kurt."

Kurt sat himself down and opened his laptop reluctantly. Just taking a quick look wasn't the same thing as giving Jacob Blog Israel a readership, he told himself, scrolling quickly past some creepy old videos Jacob had posted of Rachel from her daily MySpace serenade era, a rant about prom royalty, and a high-quality scan of the Lucy Caboosey poster Jacob had taken off the wall at school. He saw the items Tina had read to him, then found one that was pretty clearly about him and Blaine.

_This Dom is sneaking around on his sub with a fellow Dom from a private school. They flaunt their relationship publicly, but since they're gay, nobody cares, and they continue to get away with it._

Kurt didn't know why Jacob had bothered to post that as a blind item, since he was the only out gay kid at McKinley, but just under it, another item caught his attention.

_Speaking of sneaky gays, which football stud was spotted coming out of Scandals? A "coming out" scandal would definitely jeopardize his chances of ruling the school._

"That does beg the question of what you were doing lurking around Scandals, Jacob," Kurt commented snidely to himself. Of course, there was the distinct possibility that Jacob had just completely fabricated the item, or that the football stud with a chance at ruling was someone other than Karofsky...

After scanning several pages back through pregnancy rumors, reports about break-ups, stupid hearsay about teachers, and a tepid investigation on the oddity that was Puck and Lauren Zizes, Kurt had just about read his fill. As guilty a pleasure as _Gossip Girl_ was, Jacob's version of it totally lacked the slick sex appeal and fashion eye-candy that made it so enjoyable. This stuff made _The Awful Truth_ look witty and mature.

Then he saw something that put an eerie pit in his stomach.

_What hunkalicious sophomore is barely passing his classes? It seems before he transferred to McKinley, he attended a boys-only boarding school, where he was "head" of the class. According to reliable sources, he'd exchange his services for homework help. Looks like he's having a rocky time without constant tutoring!_

Pausing, Kurt frowned at the words, reading them and re-reading them carefully and trying to think of any other person in the entire school besides Sam.

Obviously, the item wasn't true... at least, not any more true than J.B.I.'s claim that Kurt was having some kind of fling with Blaine...

But, like many of the items, there was a kernel of truth to it that had seeded the assumptions, exaggerations, and outright fictionalizing. Sam had gone to an all-boys boarding school. Sam's grades had dropped after he'd broken up with Quinn and lost his house, and they were often middling at best, anyway. Sam was a sophomore, and he'd briefly been slated to play Rocky in their fall musical before it had gotten shut down. It all fit.

But he'd asked Sam whether he'd ever given a blow job before becoming his sub. Sam had said, _No. Of course not. But they wanted me to._ And Kurt believed him. He did.

At 9:46, his phone rang again, and Kurt quickly shut the Jacob Blog Israel tab and cleared it from his history for good measure, feeling gross for lingering on doubtful thoughts about his sub because of gossip.

He picked up the call, dismissing the feeling as decisively as he'd shut his browser tab, and said, "Hi, honey!"

"Hey," said Sam. Kurt could imagine him in the driver's seat of his family's van, Nice Slice's lights shining nearby. "So – I had an idea."

"Tell me your idea," said Kurt, shutting his laptop and leaning back against his headboard. There was still confetti all over his bedspread, despite the fact that he'd tried to shake it off, but he oddly didn't mind the mess.

"Okay, so, my parents are driving out to Springboro tomorrow night. My dad's gonna meet with this guy about a job opening. I don't know if it'll amount to anything, but I guess it's worth a shot, or they wouldn't go. But I'm staying home with Stevie and Stacey, so I gotta skip glee to watch them, and I thought maybe you could come over and hang out for a little while."

"Like... baby-sit with you?" Kurt asked.

"I guess. I mean – technically, I'll be baby-sitting. You don't have to do anything. It's my job. But I thought, since, like... the room won't be super-crowded, we could just chill. Maybe work on that Fleetwood Mac assignment Mr. Schue gave us."

"... Together?"

"Yeah. Together."

"Like... to sing? Together?"

"Yeah," Sam repeated slowly. "Is that okay?"

"Totally," said Kurt, who was grasping his chest. Baby-sitting? Duet? Parents out of town? No matter which signal was flashing, they all said the same thing: Date.

"So do you wanna?"

"Sounds like fun," Kurt said, very casually.

"Cool. I miss you," said Sam.

"Aww, you do?"

"Yeah. I just..."

Though Sam trailed off, Kurt smiled and waited for him to scrounge up what he was trying to say, markedly more patient than he'd been with Tina. Now this was suspense effectively built. He played with one of the buttons on his shirt.

Sam finished sheepishly, "I know I got to come to your house this week already. I just like being with you. I miss you."

Kurt chuckled, further surprised and fluttery. "My! You're in fine form today, cutie."

"I am?"

"Mmm, very fine."

"I guess I'm just – lucky. I get to do what you say."

"Lucky you," Kurt teased.

"You're my Dom! I'm so lucky." Sam was quiet for a moment, then repeated somewhat helplessly, "I miss you."

"Well, I'll see you at school, bright and early."

"Yeah," Sam admitted. "I just wish you were here. Or I was there. I wish I could be with you."

Kurt tilted his head. "You can't wait till tomorrow?"

"I can! I can. I promise."

"Well, you certainly sound excited."

"I am. I wanna see you. I wanna be good for you. Kurt – can... Can I..."

"Ask me," Kurt said permissively, although he thought he could anticipate the question.

"Can I please service you again tomorrow?"

"You want to service me... while we baby-sit?" asked Kurt, who had totally called it. And God, his dick was not averse to the idea. "Um, I admit, I don't know that much about kids, but I'm pretty sure Stevie and Stacey would notice."

"Yeah – I just – I thought maybe we could go out to your car for a few minutes? You could set your alarm and – use my mouth however you want."

A shock of arousal went off like a firework in his belly. "Sam..."

"Sorry," said Sam immediately. "I was ninety-nine percent sure you'd say no."

"But you asked anyway," Kurt observed.

"Maybe there was a one percent chance you'd say yes," said his sub. "I still like those odds."

Chuckling with a warm surge of fondness, Kurt reached down and squeezed at his stirring cock through his trousers. A few pieces of confetti fluttered to the floor as he slid down his headboard.

"I love your ideas," he admitted, "and I love that you asked. But if I let you service me in the parking lot and it wound up on the front page of the _Muckraker_ , it might torpedo my chances of getting to spend time with you. I don't want to risk the time we do get for seven minutes in heaven. If it even took that long."

He heard Sam sigh, but he sounded cooperative when he said, "I get it."

"You should know you got your Dom's dick hard saying all that, though," Kurt told him, listening with satisfaction at the deep breath Sam took and then let out in a helpless exhale. "What do you think about that?"

"I wish I could – see it," Sam replied haltingly. "I wish I could service it."

"I know you do. You'd do it whenever I let you, hm, cutie."

"Kurt," Sam breathed, "please... all I can think about is sucking your dick, but I can't, I have to work..."

"Poor thing," cooed Kurt. He eased his zip down and slid his fingers into his pants to fondle himself through his boxers. He knew Sam's greatest desire was to service him, but hearing him put it like that cut to the quick. Still, he said, "I'll let you go, then."

"No, don't," his sub squeaked.

"You sure?"

"... I have a few minutes."

"Then, since you can't do it tomorrow, how would you like to service me over the phone?" Kurt asked him.

"Can I?" Sam responded eagerly. "What do I do?"

"How about you tell me?"

"I –" Sam began, and stopped just as quickly. After a pause, he abandoned trying to figure it out and said, "Please help me. What can I do?"

"You're in your van right now, aren't you? Imagine if I opened the door and climbed in next to you," said Kurt, picturing it for himself just as much as he was creating the visual aid for Sam. "Imagine I'm hard – just like I am right now. And imagine I told you I'd let you service my dick. What would you do?"

After a moment, Sam said, "Get it out."

"That's a good idea," agreed Kurt, pushing at his y-front till it opened for him. "You'd have me in your hand... what would you do with me, then?"

"Smell you," said Sam, inspiring Kurt's lips into a hazy smile.

"You like the way I smell," he said, remembering well that Sam had said he smelled good. Just taking his cock out, he could smell it, but it just smelled like him – ordinary body heat and intimate skin that had spent the day hanging around in clothes. To think that Sam liked the scent of something so inherently masculine was so hot, and he totally got it.

"Yes. I'd go down on you and – be your sub – and use my mouth to make you feel good," Sam managed.

"You do make me feel so good," Kurt sighed, stroking himself with abandon.

"Are... are you, like, jacking off?" Sam asked, tentative.

"Mm-hmm," Kurt moaned serenely. He didn't know whether it was a cruel tease or a kindness towards his sub to get himself off like this, with Sam apparently pining for what Kurt held in his hand and completely unable to find any relief for himself, either. But it had for sure gotten him going to think of Sam servicing him at his family's motel. He could just picture the view from his driver's seat of Stevie and Stacey's bikes parked by the porch, and imagining Sam even wanting to do it within view of his family's window seemed incredibly wrong yet intimate.

"I get to listen," Sam said, understanding dawning.

"Yup. And you get to help. You and your – _mmh_ – sweet talk. Tell your Dom what you want, Sam."

"I wanna service you! I want you to come and use me on my break again. Let me suck you off."

"Of course that's what a sub like you wants."

"Yeah. I have this big mouth so I can suck your dick with it."

"Jesus," Kurt uttered, startled, his dick twitching heavily in his hand and the rest of his body swooning from the lightning-crack of arousal.

Somehow sounding completely guileless, Sam said, "If you want, you can hold me where you want me and fuck your dick in my mouth again. Or let me do all the work. Either way, I get to service you and suck you and worship you. Either way, I'm lucky."

"God, that's so hot, Sam," Kurt hissed. He twisted his wrist mercilessly. "You're so hot."

"I want to be hot for my Dom. Please. It's hot to feel you hard in my mouth. And it feels so good to be your sub like that."

"Bet it makes you feel like – a very good boy..."

"Makes me feel like I'm your good boy," agreed Sam in a huff. "You own me. I'm so lucky you let me be your sub. I'm so lucky to get to service your dick. I wish I was sucking it for you right now."

"You're gonna make me come, sub," Kurt said, hitting the calm certainty of the fact and letting that feed right into his pleasure.

On the other end of the line, Sam choked and whispered, "Please. I wish you'd let me swallow your come. Or let me be, like, your come rag."

" _Oh_ ," Kurt breathed, "sweetie – fuck."

Sam was silent as he shot off right up onto his shirt, maybe listening to his harsh staccato exhales or being jealous of his shirt without even knowing it for being his come rag. He coaxed out every droplet of jizz he had, letting each drip right onto his shirt, half thinking of how grateful Sam would be if it was his shirt getting soaked, and allowed Sam to listen to him release the last of the tension in his chest with deep sighs.

"God, good job, honey," he got out. "That was very chivalrous of you, helping to make your Dom feel good."

"Thanks," Sam said, high-pitched. Now that his own body was loose and increasingly heavy, Kurt could hear that his sub was strung, piqued, his throat tight. He uttered in rapid mumble, "Thank you so much for letting me make you come."

"You're welcome," Kurt purred.

"I like it when you come," Sam whispered.

Sluggishly, Kurt sighed, "Mm, that's 'cause you're a sweet sub. Tell me, angel, did you touch your dick while you talked to me about being my good boy?"

"Yes, a little bit... I had to stop."

"Aw, that's too bad, isn't it."

"I – I don't wanna hang up, Kurt. But I gotta go back to work now."

"Poor thing! I hope your manager doesn't see you and get any ideas about what you've been doing for me."

A breathy gulp.

"You need to come, I know," said Kurt. "You're waiting for permission like a good boy... do you want to ask me for permission to get off?"

It was something Kurt was fully prepared to give, but Sam simply said, "No, please. I don't wanna come till you tell me to."

"Hm. When will I let you come, though?" mused Kurt dotingly, wondering if that would make Sam change his mind. "Do you think you can keep waiting? I want you to be honest. You know I won't be mad if you need to come – I'm not Quinn. I know you can't help it. I know everything in your body wants it. You can ask me."

"You're so nice to me. I know I can wait, though," Sam whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I won't come till it's what you want, Kurt. I promise."

"You won't? Not even in your little sleeping bag while you're having subby dreams?" asked Kurt, hearing Sam gasp shallowly.

"I'll – I'll try not to."

"Isn't there some saying?" wondered Kurt, running the backs of his fingers up his own sticky shirt. He was a mess now, glistening with jizz, but when Sam came, it was usually a huge load, since he didn't get off nearly as often as Kurt did. By comparison, this was nothing. "'Do or do not, there is no try?'"

Sam sputtered a noise that Kurt had no idea to interpret, then whispered, "You just Yoda'ed me."

"There's your mantra for the rest of the week," said Kurt. "Know what else you're going to do for me?"

"... 'Use the Force?'"

"Hm, close," Kurt chuckled. "I want you to wear a jock strap again tomorrow. I've taken such a liking to seeing them on you..." Sam groaned fretfully, but cut himself off as Kurt continued, "And pulling your cock out of them. It's just so easy for me to play with you whenever I want. I'm going to jock check you to make sure you're being a good boy for me. Do you hear me, sub?"

"Yes, Kurt," Sam said, perfectly meekly, but he couldn't hide the eagerness of his speedy response under that soft, obedient tone.

"Good boy. Get back to work, now."

"Yes, Kurt."

"Good night."

"G'night."

 

*

 

"I saw that April lady in the parking lot," an attentive Sam said the following morning, holding Kurt's messenger bag open for him as Kurt switched some books around.

"Really? She seems like the kind of gal who doesn't get up before two in the afternoon," said Kurt. "Ooh, wait! Was she wearing the same thing as yesterday? Mr. Schue might've finally given in to her."

"I dunno, I didn't think about it, or even remember who she was at first. She was with Coach Sue and some other lady."

"Coach Sue? Why on earth?"

"I dunno. She saw me, so I, like, smiled at her, then she hugged me. It was kind of a long hug. It was weird. And she touched one of my collars. To be truthful, my whole point is, I kinda... liked it."

From the way Sam's wandering, sheepish gaze then sharpened right on him, Kurt guessed, "You mean, you, like, _liked_ it?"

"I didn't mean to," Sam said quickly. "My dick did it on its own! Even though she reeked like that cough syrup Broadway cocktail Rachel made us drink at the assembly and I kinda feel like I'm gonna puke whenever I think about it. I hope you'll please forgive me. I'm not into her, like, at all."

Kurt wasn't so sure he should be smiling, especially since he didn't especially appreciate anyone touching Sam's collars. But between Sam's matter-of-fact reporting and the fact that he obviously felt guilty about his body being ready to spring into action, he sort of found the tale cute. And as long as she wasn't operating heavy machinery, pawning alcohol off on minors, or encouraging anyone to shoplift, April was... relatively harmless.

Shutting his locker, he said magnanimously, "Don't even worry about it, cutie. I think April hugs other people just to keep from falling down sometimes. But I'm sure getting a whiff of you on top of her morning bath salts started her day off just right."

"Thanks," said Sam, trust in his eyes. He shouldered Kurt's messenger bag. "Now if the school newspaper says I was spotted canoodling with someone's mom, you'll know why."

"Yes, I will. Thank you for telling me."

"You're my Dom," was Sam's sincere, half-whispered response.

Sam walked him to French, slipping his hand into Kurt's of his own volition. Unable to help himself, Kurt reached over and caressed his cuff so the last person to touch Sam's collar wasn't Lima's own personal Gold Dust Woman. No. Just no. He didn't miss the way Sam casually pulled his messenger bag in front of him.

After lunch, Kurt snagged him by the wrist and took him to the bathroom by the choir room for a quick jock check. This time, they were hardly alone. Ignoring the shrimpy freshman at the sink picking at his zit-speckled face, Kurt took Sam to the handicapped stall, unbuttoned his jeans and took a peek.

Sure enough, there was the now-familiar tall gray waistband with its logo, and Sam swelled in his jeans, stiffening right up for him, days of pushed-away arousal surging right up under Kurt's eyes. Not caring that they weren't alone – or being, you know, appropriate – Kurt lingered, gazing at the shape of Sam's cock caught in that neat white strap, tempted to reach in and play with it.

Instead, Kurt favored his sub with a satisfied smile, and Sam's dizzy face shone.

 

*

 

After glee, Kurt raced home to grab a bite to eat and change clothes, thinking only of hurrying to his date with Sam. He was paying so little attention that at the top of the stairs, he ran smack into Finn, who jerked in a floppy way and hid something quickly behind his back, blinking at Kurt.

"Oh, hey, Finn," Kurt said, blocking the staircase with one arm. His step-brother had managed to evade him all week. "Attack anyone's sub lately?"

"Listen, about that," Finn said hesitantly, realizing he'd finally been cornered. "Sam isn't who you think he is, dude."

"Really? I think he's my sub and you were out of line, trying to pick a fight with him over a cowardly piece of gossip that isn't even true."

"I swear, I saw him this morning, hugging April Rhodes. She was all over him, and he was, like, pretty into it. Plus, Jacob Ben Israel swore to me he saw him asking Mercedes for her number, and Quinn told me he's not gay. She sounded so sure, and I don't get why she insists on it when Sam being gay might help her case. Something seriously shady is going on with him. I think he's playing the field."

"I want you to think carefully about why you would believe any of this," said Kurt, "and don't talk to me like Sam has anything to do with your reasons, because he doesn't. You know he isn't interested in Quinn. Gay or straight, he asked to be released from her!"

"I should've known," replied Finn. "You're on his side."

"Yeah, I guess if there's sides to this ridiculous debate, I'm pretty staunchly pro-Sam."

"I'm just trying to protect you. I told Burt I'd have your back, and I don't want you to get played by this jerk!"

"Well, I'm touched, but how about you forget about me and Sam and focus on your relationship with Quinn? You might want to bone up on your Fleetwood Mac-ology. Their tension and anger created something great. Meanwhile, your duet today couldn't have been any more forced and uncomfortable."

"Um, yeah, it could," Finn retorted. "It could be like watching you dom a guy who so obviously would rather be with a chick. Do you know what a joke people think the two of you are?"

Kurt could tell Finn instantly regretted letting those words vacate his brain, but they still landed with enough force to leave a crater between them, empty and gaping. In the ensuing silence, Kurt even fancied he could hear icy wind howling in the schism.

"Sorry," Finn muttered after a second that seemed like an eon. "I didn't mean to say all that –"

"Yes, you did," Kurt interrupted. "You knew exactly what you were saying. You chose the words that would hurt me the most. It's a pretty freaking massive leap from 'It's so cool you're into bondage, Kurt!' to 'You're a joke, Kurt!' So much for protecting me! Do you wanna maybe go call any of my furniture 'faggy' while you're at it?"

The atmosphere sobered even further.

"Dude... I said I'm sorry. You know I wouldn't say that word again."

"For the sake of our relationship as brothers forced by the cruel hand of fate to share a bathroom, let's not talk about this anymore," said Kurt, keeping his voice level. "I won't say anything about Quinn. You won't say anything about Sam. We'll respect each other's relationship decisions, no matter how much of a joke we think they obviously are."

"All right, fine."

"Great. Debate over," Kurt said with a tight smile, slipping past Finn and into his bedroom.

As he closed the door behind him, he glimpsed Finn hurrying down the stairs, a pair of binoculars in hand.

"And you better be bird-watching with those!" he shouted after him.

 

*

 

When Kurt pulled up to the American Family Motel just after dinnertime, it was gray and raining and Sam, Stevie, and Stacey were in the parking lot waiting for him. Stevie was on his bike and Stacey was jumping in a puddle with a ferocious energy, creating gigantic splashes as Sam supervised. They were all soaking wet. The rain was gusting off the roof of the motel in sheets, but it looked like they'd been out in it for a while.

Despite the real dent Finn had put in his mood, the pouring rain, and innocent, impressionable children, Kurt couldn't help picturing Sam servicing him here in the parking lot. He wasn't going to let it happen, but he couldn't forget Sam had asked for it, either.

Kurt popped the umbrella he kept in his backseat and climbed out into the rain, carrying a foil-covered paper plate.

"Hi, Kurt," called Stevie, balancing a bare foot on the wet pavement.

"Hey, Stevie! Cool helmet!" Kurt called back.

Sam swiped his hand through his soggy hair as Kurt approached.

"Are you getting flashbacks to our _Singin' In The Rain_ /Rihanna mashup, too, or is it just me?" Kurt asked his sub, who was also barefoot. His jeans had been rolled up to his knees like he was intending to wade into the ocean. One of his v-neck white tees was clinging to his broad shoulders and biceps. He looked more like an Abercrombie and Fitch model than anyone had the right to. 

"I'm s-i-i-ingin' in the rain," Sam let out broadly, spreading his arms wide.

"You can stand under my umbrella-ella-ella," Kurt sang back, lifting it over Sam's head. The pitter-patter of rain on the plastic made it feel like they were in a protective bubble together.

"I'm a lost cause," Sam said. His face was literally dripping with rain, but he didn't seem fussed. "What'd you bring?"

"Oh, just a blatant attempt at bribery," said Kurt airily. "I want to make your siblings love me."

"I don't think you need to bribe them for that to happen."

"Kids do like Rice Krispie treats, don't they?"

"Yep," Sam said, smiling at his sudden paranoia. "You can take 'em inside. I'm gonna stay out here for a bit and watch Stacey wear herself out, but you don't have to. I know you, uh, don't like your clothes to get messed up."

"I'll take them in," said Kurt, "but if you're willing to hang on the porch, I'll join you."

"Cool," grinned Sam.

Inside, Kurt found that the room was rather more neat than the last time he'd seen it. No one was taking up space in it, for one thing, but also, the bed was made. Stevie and Stacey's blue and pink sleeping bags and backpacks were on it, clearing much of the floor save for Sam's sleeping bag, which had been folded a couple of times. After gazing at its rust-colored exterior for a minute and wondering how Sam could sleep on the floor every night, Kurt left the plate on the tiny table by the windows, which had been cleared, then sought out the bathroom for a dry towel. It was a bit more cluttered in there, though, and Kurt changed his mind, not wanting to pry through the Evans' things.

Instead, he found what he was pretty sure was Sam's clean laundry hamper. He picked out what proved to be another plain t-shirt and carried it out onto the porch with him.

"Ba-by, come here to me, come here to me," he sang out to Sam, who hopped up the steps with bright eyes and consented to having his face, neck, and hair patted dry with the t-shirt.

"Thanks," he said with a sniffle.

"My pleasure," Kurt replied flirtatiously.

"Uh, do you wanna sit?" Sam asked, pulling out a plastic chair for him. "It's dry."

"Oh, thanks. You know, maybe some afternoon when it isn't coming down in buckets, we could take Stevie and Stacey to the park or something," Kurt suggested, hanging the dampened tee over the back of the chair before taking the seat. "Ooh, and there's a dollar theater by the mall. Maybe we could all see a movie."

"That'd be great!" responded Sam. "They're so sick of being in the room, but Stacey's hard to take places on the bus. She doesn't get that she can't walk around and thinks every time it stops, it's our stop. Hey! Stevie! Show Kurt your wheelie!"

"It's raining too hard," Stevie yelled back. "Makes my tires slip around."

"He was doing them earlier," Sam told Kurt, and sat himself on the step nearby. "He just learned the other day."

"Aw, that's cool," said Kurt, who could hear the pride in Sam's voice. "Maybe he'll show me some other time. Do you have a bike, Sam?"

"Not anymore. We sold it."

"Aw. Sorry."

He watched Stevie determinedly pedal on. It wasn't too chilly of a rain, but it wasn't gentle, yet Stevie seemed happy to be out here hydroplaning, getting soaked to the skin and forcing his bike around in a little circle. Sam's long legs draped over the front steps. He, too, seemed comfortable in his wet clothes, his bare feet getting rained on. He did tell Stacey not to sit in the puddle she'd become the mistress of, but she was already drenched, too.

"I hope none of you catch a cold," Kurt offered.

"Nah, it's fine," said Sam. "Getting a little wet doesn't hurt you. Haven't you ever played in the rain?"

"Not really, outside of our wildly impractical umbrella number. Rain does bring some nice fashion options into play, though. I'm a big fan of raincoats, umbrellas, and galoshes. But not so much of humidity, mud, getting my hair wet, or being forced to forgo suede."

Sam nodded, but said, "I like rain. So many cool songs about rain, y'know? That Cascades song's my favorite. 'November Rain''s good too. 'The Thunder Rolls.'"

"'Purple Rain,'" Kurt agreed. "'Set Fire To The Rain.'"

"Creedence has, like... eight songs about rain."

"Madonna's 'Rain.'"

"That's one of your favorites," Sam said, looking at him with his big puppy eyes. "You showed me the video!"

"I did! An underrated gem from her flawless _Erotica_ album. Dita is such an inspiration to me."

He didn't miss Sam's pleased, puzzled smile.

Cars and trucks went past the motel at random, taking the highway carefully in the rain. Kurt didn't imagine many people felt like getting out into this weather. But his company seemed to find it extremely entertaining. It didn't take long for Kurt to start feeling like he stuck out amongst the group, the only one who wasn't tow-headed and soggy and, despite everything, sort of at home in the downpour.

Leaning over, he sighed, "Okay, okay," and untied his Docs.

"Are you going somewhere?" Sam asked, watching him over his shoulder as he pulled his boots and socks off. 

"I think maybe I'll see what the fuss over rain is all about," Kurt said. Copying Sam, he rolled the legs of his trousers up his calves. "But I'm taking my umbrella. If my hair gets wet, it's ruined and I'm ruined."

His sub just smiled at him deferentially.

So Kurt wandered into the wet parking lot, stepping carefully around a rip in the pavement that had let out some gravel. It was really coming down, dancing on the faded paint that lined up parking spaces, but his umbrella was shielding his upper half nicely.

"Hey, Stacey," he called out, padding over to her. She was starting to warm up to him. "Can you show me how to make a good splash?"

"Just jump!" she chirped.

"Might as well jump?" Kurt asked, to the tune of Van Halen, and hopped into her puddle beside her. He made all the splash of Greg Louganis.

"No, you have to _jump_ ," Stacey told him, and demonstrated forcefully, with a bounce that had her sandaled feet slamming like a cannon ball against the water – all of which then landed on Kurt, dousing the front of his hemp jacket and pants.

After a second of shock, he burst out laughing, and heard Sam laughing, too. It wasn't nearly as bad as getting splashed with a Big Gulp.

After jumping with Stacey for a few minutes, accepting her stylistic critiques and then helping her find a good new puddle, Kurt sloshed back to the porch, where Sam was lounging on his elbows, draped over the steps like some kind of _Playgirl_ spread and grinning.

"Not a word," Kurt said, feeling undignified. He was drenched from the waist down.

"What, why? I only have good words."

"Oh, sure, good words are allowed," panted Kurt, shaking off his umbrella and setting it aside.

"My first word is 'cute,'" said Sam.

"'Cute' like when the choir from the Haverford School attempted 'Party In The U.S.A.' you mean?" Kurt laughed, sitting next to Sam. His legs were whiter than Sam's t-shirt, since it was damp and clingy on him.

"I liked seeing you just messing around," shrugged Sam, smiling out at the parking lot. "You're usually more, like..."

"Fussy?" Kurt filled in, unbuttoning his damp trench. "There's another word for you. And you would not be the first person to say that, believe me."

"I guess – like, if that's what you say. But, like, besides how you never want your hair and clothes messed up, it's like you just... are guarded."

Surprised, Kurt sat in silence, hearing thunder rumble in the distance. Sam must have heard it, too, because he stared up at the sky as if he might be able to see the thunder. Raindrops hit his naked toes.

They watched Stevie repeatedly ride his bike through a puddle, apparently enjoying seeing the tires slice through it.

"I have reasons to be guarded," Kurt finally said.

Sam looked at him curiously.

"Yeah... obviously you have to have your guard up sometimes," he said. "You never know when people will mess with you at school. But you don't have to be guarded when you're just with me."

"Okay," Kurt said with an agreeable nod. It was a sweet sentiment, even if Kurt didn't think he guarded himself all that closely around Sam. If anything, he let his guard down more than he should.

"I like seeing your feet," Sam added.

"... You do?"

"Uh, I'm not, like, a weird fetishist or anything," Sam said hastily, making Kurt realize his confused response sounded derisive. "I just haven't ever seen them. That's all."

Kurt let his feet slide down the steps and join Sam's, then crossed his ankles, self-conscious. His feet were very pale next to Sam's, and very big; Sam's were more slender, and Kurt could also see that compared to Sam, he did hold himself very particularly. Sam's feet splayed lazily, as did his legs, whereas Kurt sat tightly, winding his ankles in an attempt at looking casual. He guessed Sam really hadn't ever seen him so much as barefoot.

With "Jump" freshly remembered in his brain, it made him realize all over again that Sam had missed out on a lot last year, like seeing him in a pair of loose pajamas, bouncing around and touching his toes in midair... not to mention strolling down the halls of McKinley during Gaga week, wearing gem-studded spacewoman heels and a wig. Last year, Sam had been in some boarding school, fraternizing with boys 24/7...

"We're getting to know each other pretty well, right, Sam?" he asked slowly. "Like... you know you can always ask me questions, if you have them. And you can tell me anything."

"Yeah. I know," Sam said with a smile. Maybe he was remembering his April Rhodes Report from that morning.

"I'd like to ask you about something."

"'Course. I'll tell you anything."

"But you don't have to, if you don't want to. I want you to know that. As I said, I respect you. You're not my doormat."

"I promise, I'm not into feet," Sam said warily.

"Please," said Kurt, nudging Sam's foot with his own. "If you were, I wouldn't mind a bit. Lots of Doms love foot service, and my shoe collection gives _me_ wet dreams. But that's not what I was going to ask you about."

"Okay. What, then?" Sam asked simply, sitting up straighter and hauling himself easily into place beside Kurt.

"Your boarding school sub," said Kurt, eyeing Sam's face. He didn't miss how Sam's eyelids took an immediate dip. "Can you tell me about him? I've been wondering about it since I claimed you."

Shrugging, Sam balanced his elbows on his knees. "It's not a big deal. He wasn't really my sub. It was this friend of mine. I thought I was a Dom, so... I dommed him."

"Like, just for fun?"

Sam opened his mouth to respond, then sighed, mouth shutting again and pulling hard in a reluctant twist.

"I can explain," he began, like Kurt was busting him on something.

"Oh – honey, I'm not trying to interrogate you," Kurt tried.

"It's fine. It's just kind of embarrassing."

"Well... I won't judge you," he said. "You know that."

"Yeah. I know. You won't even be mad, probably. Just, there's something else I have to explain."

"Okay. Tell me whatever you want about it."

Shoulders hitching up, Sam said, "Well. Till last year, I didn't think I was a sub, really – I had crushes on all kinds of girls, but where I went to middle school, a lot of people hadn't really, like, declared themselves yet. I kinda thought I was a Dom. But I didn't think it was important till I went to Brookside. Doms ruled that place. At McKinley, it doesn't matter so much whether you're a Dom or a sub. It's still about being the right thing, but it's more about the clothes you wear and whether you're a football player or a cheerleader. You can be a sub and still be popular on your own terms and be in leadership positions. Like Finn. But a sub would never be the team captain at Brookside. Not even for academic bowl. He could get picked by the coach and be the best person for the job, but he'd defer the position to a Dom."

"What a shame," Kurt said softly. "Some subs can be more organized and dedicated than any Dom."

"Yeah. It sucks and it's not fair, but that's the way it worked there. And a sub that made that kind of play could really get popular. Y'know, giving up something like that, rallying behind the right Dom. Stuff like that could cement a good team. You could pretend none of that stuff went on... orientation wasn't supposed to affect anyone. But it did all the time. And, I mean, the system served Doms," Sam said. "So I wasn't complaining."

"Did the system make you want to be a Dom?"

"... Maybe. I mean. I wanted to be... confident. I wanted people to notice me. I did a lot of impressions people liked. And there was this one guy. He really liked them. He was a Dom and a junior and really cool... He was a captain on one of my teams. He got picked over all the seniors. He was really popular. Really cool."

"Oh," Kurt said, surprised by the fervent praise. It sounded like Sam hadn't only crushed on girls. "Was he cute?"

"Um..." Sam seemed confused about why that was relevant, but said, "Yeah. I guess he was, like, good-looking."

Kurt gave him a patient little smile.

"Everybody liked him, not just me," Sam hastened to say. "Doms, subs. And all his friends were cool, too. He was the guy you rallied behind. And he liked me, or something. Not... like that. I don't think. But he – knew I was a sub. I didn't know, but he knew. I guess the way I looked at him... I don't know. Maybe I looked at him weird, or just looked at him too much. He didn't seem to care if I did. Like, he was just so confident. But one day I was in the showers and he came up behind me. I guess he thought I would just get on my knees for him right there. But I just – pushed him off me. Pretty hard. He bounced off the tiles. Conked his head. It became this big thing. We both got in trouble."

"Oh my gosh. That sounds terrifying," Kurt said, after swallowing a Karofsky-sized lump in his throat.

"I wasn't scared of him," Sam said, with a resolute shake of his head. "I mean, I was kinda scared, but not of a fight or anything. I don't know. It just made me flip. I don't remember even deciding to push him. I dunno why I thought I had to. But I guess it scared me, like, inside. I'm still so freaking embarrassed about it."

"He's the one who should be embarrassed, harassing a naked, vulnerable freshman," Kurt told him. "He's lucky you didn't do worse than push him!"

"No, I know," said Sam, staring into space. "I was just embarrassed 'cause I was... really proud I was buddies with him. But I was stupid. 'Cause obviously it wasn't like that, and everyone knew it but me. Everybody knew I was a sub but me. I just made a fool of myself. I – I don't know, maybe I was cruising him, even if I didn't know it."

"No, Sam," Kurt said firmly. "You were not his submissive. He was wrong to approach you for that kind of thing without any kind of courtship. In public, too! Who does he think he is!"

"No, it – it just worked differently there," Sam said insistently. "It was a thing! Nobody courted or claimed – all that was against the rules. Stuff happened, but... even when people knew, nobody talked about it. You could get expelled. I'm lucky I didn't get either of us expelled!"

Although it went against his every instinct, it was plain to Kurt then that Sam wasn't looking to be absolved of guilt. Kurt could probably tell him all day long why this guy had no right to approach him for dick service and it would go in one ear and out the other. He was sort of that way about Quinn. Even though she had been the one to cheat on him, he put the blame on himself, because his Dominant was always going to be the rule-maker he served and above reproach in his heart. While Sam obviously hadn't been claimed in any civilized way, this Dom he had admired so much had still apparently considered him on some level, and it sounded like Sam had responded, too, creating a weak and fleeting but present dynamic of domination and submission.

Kurt didn't get what that was like, exactly, as his puppy love with Finn had been entirely one-sided, and the fact that Blaine had responded to him as a Dom had Kurt on edge with everything he said. He didn't want to dominate Blaine. All that spare energy was nothing compared to how he felt about Sam.

"Okay. I get it, I think," he murmured, backing off respectfully. "It does sound different."

"Stacey," called Sam. "What'd I tell you! Don't lie down in the puddle!"

"I wanna float on my back," Stacey protested.

"Cars won't see you if you lie down! You better get up, or I won't let you have the treat Kurt brought for you."

That got Stacey up.

"Attagirl," said Sam.

"Um... so," Kurt pressed on tentatively, "did that guy make you realize you were a sub?"

"No! It just made me mad, and like, all defensive. It screwed up my reputation and all of a sudden guys were looking at me different, saying stuff about my mouth, calling me 'pretty boy.' 'Cock sucker.' All kinds of stuff, just laughing at me. I was like, 'But I don't get it. I'm not a sub. I don't put out those vibes. I'm a Dom – why don't people see it?' My roommate backed me up. He said I definitely came off like a Dom to him. And I let him say stuff like that to me for weeks. I let him treat me like a Dom. I mean... I dommed him. I liked it most of the time, even." Sam pressed his hands to his face, hiding his expression, and groaned, "I feel so weird about it."

"You don't need to feel bad for the time you spent figuring out who you are," said Kurt. "Tina and Artie dated last year, before Tina realized she was not going to be dominated by any man. I know someone else who's a Dom, but he, um, has lately realized he might be down to switch. For switches especially, being confused is common."

"Yeah, it's fine, I know," Sam repeated, his hands sliding through his hair, fingers uncomfortably curling. "I still wish I could take it all back. It went too far, all 'cause I thought I had to be a Dom."

"How far is too far? Did you guys hook up?"

Why Kurt even asked, he didn't know. He already knew the answer was yes, and it made his stomach hurt a bit. He was definitely relieved that Sam hadn't submitted to a guy before, officially, and in a way, he was attracted to the idea of Sam domming a guy. Mostly, he felt sorta threatened. He didn't have any real experiences like this.

"Kinda," said Sam, solidifying the tummy ache.

"Can you tell me what you did with him?" Kurt asked. "If you guys had sex, it's my right to know."

"Oh, God, no, we didn't," Sam replied, finally looking at him with worried eyes. "Mostly he just did stuff for me, like make my bed, hang up my clothes, make sure my laptop was always plugged into the charger when I wasn't using it. I let him tie my shoes every day, 'cause I'm so bad at it."

"And? What else did you let him do?" Kurt prompted expectantly. Sam gave another shrug.

"He was kneeling down there already. He said there was other stuff he could do for me while he was down there. So, like... uhh. That."

"You can say the words to me," Kurt told him. "It's okay."

Sam's gaze darted, and he lowered his voice, keeping it monotone. "Okay. He felt me up. I'd never... I dunno. But I got hard. And he sucked my dick a little bit."

"A little bit? That's still sex."

"No, it really wasn't, I promise. It was just for a minute or two. I mean, I thought I'd want something like that. What guy doesn't. What Dom doesn't wanna get service. And I tried to let it happen. I tried to enjoy it. But it was like I couldn't even concentrate. I had this massive guilt attack and stopped him. Like, what if I was treating him the way that other guy treated me? Taking advantage of him? Acting like it was just natural he'd wanna do that? What if he was just confused? What if he thought we were one way with each other, when I didn't think so? And what was I trying to prove? How does a guy being willing to service me make me a Dom? I still feel so guilty I for one second thought it was okay to act like his Dom. I stopped letting him do anything for me. I feel really guilty about that, too."

"That you didn't keep domming him?"

"Yeah. I kicked his pride square in the jewels, I know it."

Kurt put a reassuring hand on Sam's back. "My sub, the heartbreaker."

That made Sam laugh nervously.

"Did you ever think that maybe it felt wrong because he was a guy?" Kurt asked. At this point, he thought he could take it in stride if Sam confessed that to be the case. "And you didn't want to submit to your teammate or dominate your friend because they're guys, and you just aren't into guys?"

"No. I mean. Yeah, of course it occurred to me," Sam answered. "It'd be way easier if I could've just told him I'm not into guys. But I dunno. Obviously I give off major gay vibes. Everybody here thinks I'm gay."

"But that doesn't mean you're actually gay. And you don't have to be gay to find a guy attractive. Lots of people experiment. And when they're stuck long-term in places where there's no girls around, lots of guys will hook up just, you know, 'cause. Sex is something everyone wants. And it doesn't need to mean anything. Was that what was happening with you?"

"I don't know," Sam whispered furtively. "I don't know. Maybe. I started off a straight Dom! Now I'm a gay sub? I don't know. What's right? I don't do anything right, anyway. I don't know how to be a Dom or a sub, and if I check out guys, I can't just be straight, but 'cause I like girls, you act like I can't possibly like you, too. I know it'd just be easier if I was one thing or the other. I know you wish I was just gay and I wish I could just tell you that's what I am."

"I like you just the way you are, though," Kurt told him, an echo of Bruno Mars in his head. "I know I've said this, but whatever you like is all right with me, Sam, and it won't change anything between us, unless that's what you need. If you're bi, I can deal. If you're a switch, well – it doesn't surprise me. It must be confusing to be attracted to both girls and guys. And to like both domming and subbing. I have to admit, it's hard for me to imagine. But it sounds tough to try and figure it all out. And it sounds like you let your friend down as easy as you knew how, under the circumstances. Like you did with Rachel."

"I still feel like I did everything wrong – I feel like I'm a freak," he huffed. "I dunno what's wrong with me. It's like I have no control over my own brain or body. It's weird. I'm weird. I'm so sorry, Kurt."

"You don't need to apologize to me," Kurt said, rubbing Sam between the shoulder blades. "The more I learn about you, the happier I am to have you as my sub."

"I knew you probably wouldn't get mad at me. But I don't get how you can say stuff like that."

"Not every guy would feel bad about experimenting with a friend, or worry about hurting their friend. Just look at what Puck thinks of his friendships. Look at Finn and Quinn and Santana. Dom or sub, people can be very selfish. I'm definitely one of those people, Sam. But you're not. You haven't tried to hurt anyone. You haven't mislead anyone on purpose. You don't operate on ulterior motives. You don't need to worry about being in control so much, or worry about what you like. And you don't need any forgiveness from me, but if you want it, know that you have it. I hope you can forgive yourself, too. And," said Kurt, pulling out the big guns, "I know God forgives you, since he has that Grinch heart x-ray and knows what's up in there."

He felt Sam deflate under his hand, but the sigh seemed to be one of relief. Contrary to what he'd said, it seemed to Kurt like it all was a big deal. Maybe Sam was trying to minimize it for Kurt's benefit, or for his own, but it reminded him of Sam acting like it was no big deal to not have a bed.

"Thanks," he wheezed. "If it's okay, can you promise you won't tell anyone? My parents don't know. Most of it, anyway. They know about – the shower."

"I promise, honey."

"Thanks."

"Don't ever think you're alone," Kurt added, stroking the damp ducktail at the back of Sam's neck. "I've done stupid things, too. Remember how I made out with Brittany? I was trying to prove I could be as straight as the next guy, even though I knew I was gay. I really wanted my dad to see me as a man. A guy's guy. She wanted to make out with me and I allowed her to do it for show. I kept having to keep her hand from sliding into unwelcome places. As much as I doubt Brittany cares that I was just using her, that's how it was for me. I sort of regret not having my first kiss with someone I had real feelings for, but at the same time, I'm glad I found out for sure that I don't have any interest in kissing girls. And I had a similar thing happen to me with a guy in a locker room once, too. Only I felt really afraid of him. Afraid of what he'd do to me, physically. I pushed him away, too. I've only ever told one person what happened, so. Believe me when I tell you your secret is safe with me."

Sam turned on the spot, staring at him with an eerie seriousness.

"Do I know the guy?"

Kurt felt himself blink rapidly. He was sorely tempted to tell Sam exactly what had happened and who he'd almost transferred to avoid, but he didn't want to out Karofsky, even to Sam. He said, almost chipper, "He goes to McKinley. I can't tell you who it is."

"I wouldn't tell," Sam said.

"I know. I would tell you, but if it were me in the closet, I wouldn't want anyone to out me, even just to one other person. And if he asked me about your private business, I wouldn't say a word, either."

His sub blinked, looking doubtful, but said, "Okay. You don't have to tell me who it is. But, y'know... would you tell me what happened? If that's okay?"

"Oh, he grabbed me and kissed me," said Kurt, fully aware he was doing exactly what Sam was doing – minimizing it. So he added, "It... really affected me. And I hate that it did. I hate that I was terrified of him. I almost transferred to Dalton. I guess that's one of the reasons I'm guarded. But he doesn't have any power over me anymore. I don't allow it."

After a pause, Sam said, his arms clenched tight around his knees, "I don't see how anyone could think you're a sub. You're obviously not."

That got a pleased chuckle out of Kurt. "You know, right before he grabbed me, I gave him a thorough what-for. Maybe he sorely needed a bit of a verbal spanking, and when I gave it to him, he was overcome with the need to throw himself at me."

"...I get that," admitted Sam, putting his face right down onto his arm.

"I'm bleeding," Stacey announced, limping up to them.

Sam was upright again and off the stairs immediately. "What happened? Let me see!"

"My knee!"

She stuck her leg out and let Sam crouch in front of her to investigate the fresh pinkened skin. It was hard to tell if she was crying, since it was raining, but she made some pitiful noises. Stevie dismounted his bike and pushed it up to the porch, interested in what was going on. Kurt, too, stood anxiously, envisioning driving Stacey to the hospital for stitches or something – but it seemed like Sam had the situation under control, and he couldn't see any blood on Stacey's leg.

"Aw, that's not too bad!" was the calm verdict. Sam stood and hauled her up into his arms. "Let's clean you up and we'll put some Neosporin on it, 'kay? Then maybe Kurt'll let you have a treat. Ready to head in, Stevie? It's gonna be dark soon."

"Eh," Stevie said, non-committal.

"It's bath night," Sam said cheerily.

"I take showers now," Stevie corrected him.

"'Kay, well, prop your bike. It's shower time."

"'Kay," Stevie echoed, relenting.

"Wanna come in, Kurt?" Sam asked him.

"Of course."

Admiring Sam's effortless shepherding skills, Kurt gathered his socks, boots, and Sam's tee from the back of his chair so he could follow them inside. He'd always suspected his sub could be a capable Dom if he wanted to; he was perfectly at ease with being in charge of his siblings, and from what he'd said, Kurt had little doubt that his roommate/sub had been all too eager to do everything Sam had mentioned.

 _I just let him_ , Sam had said, stressing his passivity. _I let him treat me like a Dom. I liked it most of the time, even..._

_I thought I was a Dom..._

His sub, the switch.

 

*

 

Sam didn't seem to realize that Kurt spent the next thirty minutes watching him closely and quietly. He got Stevie into a quick shower. He placated Stacey as he toweled her down briskly, cleaned up her knee, then let her have a Rice Krispie treat while he brushed her wet hair out. She moaned and whined a bit when the brush snagged, but since she remained quite interested in her Rice Krispie square, such responses seemed to be mostly for show.

Seeing Sam so competent and in control and sure of what he was doing, yet obviously taking pains to be gentle, was fascinating. Kurt had no idea how to interact with kids. Sam and Quinn both made it seem effortless, just second nature, but Kurt was thankful that he didn't need to do anything in the way of actual child care.

He watched Sam put the TV on for his sister, its volume low, then only slightly averted his gaze as Sam changed into a fresh, dry t-shirt. His sub sorted out everyone's laundry. There was an inbox/outbox-esque basket system going. When Stevie was out of the shower, he too got a Rice Krispie treat, and Sam hung his little brother's damp jeans up where they could air dry, then Stevie was set up at the table with a math worksheet that needed finishing. Sam ran a bath for Stacey, then left her to it and breathed a small sigh.

"Want a Rice Krispie treat?" Kurt asked him. He was perched on the edge of the bed, one knee crossed over the other.

"Yeah!" said Sam, but immediately took it back. "But I probably shouldn't. Thanks, though."

"Sit with me while we wait for Stacey," proposed Kurt.

He smiled as Sam chose to kneel beside him, sitting back on his calves and looking up at him thoughtfully.

"Um. You make loving fun," Sam said.

"...Thank you?"

That made Sam laugh under his breath. "The Fleetwood song."

"Oh! Right, sure," Kurt said quickly. "I'm not really intimately familiar with that one."

"Well, I think you have the perfect voice for it," said Sam, making Kurt lean back on his hands, quite flattered. "You should sing it for the assignment this week."

"Me? What about you?"

"I'll back you up on guitar."

"And you'll sing, too, right?"

"Yeah. If you want. I'll sing with you," Sam said, and curled over, resting his cheek on Kurt's thigh. The splashing Kurt had gotten in the parking lot was lingering in the fabric of his trousers, but Sam didn't hesitate to rub his cheek against them as if they were that soft hoodie he was enchanted by. "If I still had my guitar, I'd play it for you right now and we could sing it."

"Can you play the guitar on your knees?" Kurt teased gently.

"Yup."

"Remind me how the song goes."

Sam touched his cuffed pant leg tentatively, taking a moment to think.

"Swee-ee-eet, wonderful you," he sang under his breath. "You make me happy with the things you do. Oh-oh, can it be so-o? This feeling follows me wherever I go. I never could belie..."

Taking the prompt, Kurt sang, "Belie-e-e-eve in miracles," feeling his sub's cheek nudging against his leg as he smiled. "But... Hm-hm, something, something, something. Sorry, cutie. I don't remember the exact words."

"'I have a feeling it's time to try,'" Stevie spoke up distractedly, without looking up from his math.

"Ah, a Fleetwood fan," said Kurt, surprised.

"I was named after Stevie Nicks," responded Stevie.

"Well, that is totally awesome," said Kurt with a grin. "We should probably let you finish before we start giving a concert. Actually, all things considered, maybe you two should be giving me the concert. The Evans Family Singers."

Sam looked up at him, cheekbone pressed against Kurt's leg, the expression adoring.

For a second, Kurt thought again about Sam's roommate; he couldn't picture anything real or exact, just a shadow box of a dorm room, and some unfamiliar, unworthy hand daring to touch Sam through his uniform pants, allowed to feel him hard. Maybe the guy had looked up at him with a similar expression of trust. He wondered how much uncertainty about himself and his responses Sam had already been carrying by the time Quinn had taken him on and effectively convinced him that everything he wanted was to be repressed.

He combed fingers through Sam's wet hair, then leaned down and gave his forehead a kiss.

 

*

 

Sometime later, it was still raining outside, dark except for the neon glow of the sign reflecting on the wet parking lot.

Stevie was reading a copy of _Captain Underpants_ , hiding back in the corner next to the cot. There were coloring books and a couple of boxes of crayons stacked on the table by the window. Kurt had colored with him for quite some time, livening up Superman's dated look with some alternative polka-dots and stripes. He'd been relieved to discover that Stevie was comfortable just chilling and giving him monosyllabic answers as he diligently filled in color. On the other hand, Stacey had been delighted and full of giggles when Sam had pretended she was a barbell and bench-pressed her. Their Fleetwood Mac duet wasn't so much rehearsed as mutually stuck in their heads and riffed between them here and there, a cappella. It was still better than Finn and Quinn's.

Night had brought a chill, so Sam had turned the heater on low, a comforting hum that went along with the drizzling rain and helped muffle the distant clunking of the ice machine. _The Cosby Show_ was on Nick at Nite, playing at such a soft volume Kurt could barely hear it. It had lulled Stacey to sleep. Her pink plush rabbit was tucked under her arm.

As Sam had deemed his trousers pretty wet and cold, Kurt had agreed to change into a pair of Sam's sweatpants so his could be hung up to dry next to Stevie's in front of the heater. And, as sweatpants and a button-down were not a good look, he'd also accepted a shirt of Sam's – that gray and red raglan henley he wore so often, which hung baggy on his frame and was thinner and more worn than it looked, but smelled just like Sam. Also, as Stacey was sprawled across the bed, Kurt was now sitting on the floor, feeling chilly and nearly naked in the scrappy, loose layers of his sub's clothes, but glorying in the fact that Sam had spread his sleeping bag out for him rather than let him sit on the old brown carpet.

"How comfy," he said, stroking the bag's durable exterior. He felt weirdly affectionate towards it.

Next to him, Sam eased himself onto his hip, watching his hand rove over the rust-colored material for a long minute then looking up at him attentively.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Nope. I'm good."

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Nothing appropriate," said Kurt, with a flirty tilt of his head.

He watched Sam's lips pull in a smile and his eyes light up.

"Is there anything you want?"

"Anything I want?" Kurt echoed, enjoying the back-and-forth and Sam's clear desire to please despite himself. "Gosh. What more could I want?"

Sam briefly chewed on the corner of his lips, pushing his mouth into one of its funny rueful shapes, then asked wondrously, "Do you want to train me?"

Inhaling reflexively at the mere word, Kurt lifted his chin. "Train you. How."

Still pulling shapes with his mouth, Sam blinked at his careful tone and clipped words. Then he leaned in on one hand, murmuring to Kurt softly under the drone of the sitcom laugh track.

"You could train me to kiss you?"

Kurt's brows lifted helplessly high. "... Oh?"

"I won't be like Brittany," Sam said, eyes wide. "Or that guy – whoever. I'll follow your lead and you can teach me how to do it right."

"I'm –" started Kurt, a number of things running through his head. _Shocked! Delighted! Concerned! Not exactly an expert!_ He lapsed into a momentary silence as he tried to think of how to address the abrupt suggestion, and Sam stared.

"Unless, like, you don't like kissing," he offered in a whisper.

"I like it," Kurt finally responded.

His sub's chin dipped in what looked to be a nod, but he still said, "But not with me, right? Is it my mouth?"

"You know I love your mouth, silly. Haven't I told you?"

"Well, just... you do kiss me sometimes, but not on the lips, so... I don't know."

"Uh. I didn't know you noticed that kind of thing."

"I thought maybe it's 'cause I need training."

"I'd be happy to kiss you," Kurt admitted. "But your brother's, like, right there. Holding hands is one thing, and I know I've tucked you into this little sleeping bag right in front of your whole family, but is it kosher to kiss you in front of him?"

"Stevie," piped Sam, just loud enough to get his attention. "Kurt wants to kiss me."

Kurt managed to blush.

"Uh, okay?" came Stevie's confused voice.

"You mind?"

"Whatever," said Stevie.

"See? Nothing he hasn't seen before," Sam told Kurt.

"You and Quinn?" he asked, receiving a nod. He lowered his voice to a whisper and asked casually, "You didn't let your roommate kiss you?"

Sam shook his head.

"No? You didn't kiss any cute older boarding school boys?"

"No," whispered Sam, looking unsure as to whether that was the right answer or not.

Kurt both relaxed and shifted to the offensive. "Okay, then, sport. Let's see what those girls taught you."

After all that, Sam had the audacity to look slightly nervous, but it made Kurt feel like he had the upper hand in the situation, which was more than welcome. Sam had dated Quinn for months – made out with her to an extent Kurt had never even slightly wanted to approach with Brittany. Santana had sucked face with him continuously at Rachel's party, with and without liquid encouragement. Sam had much more experience than he did; Kurt was willing to bet he needed training way more than Sam.

He adopted a cool pretense of patience as Sam leaned in. Their noses collided gently, a little awkward, and Sam gave him a warm but painfully soft press of lips on lips for a heartbeat.

It was barely more than a peck, and Sam was peering at him afterwards, face still close. He didn't make another move.

"I know that isn't all," Kurt whispered. His heart was beating ferociously hard. If Karofsky hadn't grabbed him already, that would have been the first time a guy had willingly, purposefully kissed him. It managed to feel like the first real kiss Kurt had ever gotten, anyway, and he was throbbing in the wake of it. He already missed Sam's lips on his. "Show me what you did with them."

He saw Sam's eyelids take a dizzy drop before he leaned back in with a firmer mouth, inhaling as Kurt tilted his head to meet him just as firmly. Sam's hand lifted to his shoulder, clutching it, and after that, Kurt slipped into a dream. In the dream, Sam kissed him without pause, till their clumsy mouths settled into recognition.

He dreamt of dropping his mouth in invitation, and of Sam taking him up on it immediately, and of meeting his tongue somewhere between them. There was nothing but the smoothness of muscle and warmth of spit, no mouthfuls of sharp-tasting come that threatened to spill out. Nothing between them, and nothing to stop them. There was just the nearly-inaudible whimper on the edge of Sam's breath as Kurt lifted a hand to cradle his face, familiar and reassuring.

He dreamt of a weight pulling him down, or pushing him, or leading him carefully. Or maybe he was the weight that pulled Sam. Somehow he was leaning, and Sam followed till Kurt was on his back on the slight cushion of the sleeping bag, easing up next to him, all of it this swoon. He felt like a wave washing over a shore, everything about reaching that beach natural and inevitable but still like a crash that broke him gently and reduced him to rippling foam. Sam was warm, solid muscle – the steady rock around which Kurt was lapping, wearing down. But he was careful, too, letting Kurt lead him. He was holding himself back and Kurt was coaxing him forward, fingers slipping around the back of his head and carding through hair that was still damp.

He dreamt of Sam's ankle sliding against his, and dragging his loose sweats with it, till his ankle was bare, too, and their ankles were bumping and rubbing almost as intimately as their tongues were. Getting warmer on him, heavier, Sam was nearly covering him. But the warmest thing was his hand sliding up Kurt's side, rustling his loose shirt and finding unclad, undefended skin. For a moment, even in the haze of the dream, it put him on edge. But the edge dissolved into goose bumps; another breaking of the wave as he succumbed to the riptide. He didn't know if he was cold or hot. Both. He was both. He felt naked... like he might as well not even be wearing a shirt...

Then came the rudest awakening.

Something crash-landed on Sam.

Kurt jumped in his skin, electrically over-sensitive. Arousal had stolen over him and he hadn't even realized how hard he'd gotten under Sam's hips till that instant. He was, though, incredibly aware of Sam's hand up his shirt. 

Sam panted and groaned, "Stacey..."

"Samwich," Stacey declared.

"Oh my God," Kurt murmured. How quickly and totally he had forgotten about where they were and who was in the room with them! He could feel his skin stinging with a blush so fierce it felt like his body was trying to punish him with a billion needles to the face.

"Stacey," Sam repeated, pained. "You're supposed to be asleep."

"'Kay. Good night!!"

She let out a noisy pretend snore, making Sam press his lips into a flat line and look at Kurt with apologetic eyes.

"We should stop," Kurt said, smiling tightly.

"Yeah," Sam admitted. "I think there's some kinda sleeping monkey on my back."

"Stacey, why don't you just be cool?" Stevie complained.

Stacey's chorus of snores stopped abruptly. "I am cool!"

"They're trying to kiss and you're bothering them," Stevie scoffed.

Stacey sat up, her legs falling on either side of Sam's waist – and therefore, Kurt's.

"Sorry," she said, unaffected.

"It's fine!" Kurt immediately assured her from his prone position underneath her big brother.

"Are you boyfriend-girlfriend?"

"Uh, I told you, Kurt's my Dom!" Sam said quickly. "He's a guy and a Dom and he's – my Dom. Just, uh, get off us, okay!"

She pretty much fell off Sam, flopping onto the floor in her pink nightgown beside Kurt. Her face was mildly curious and clueless. "Why were you touching tongues?"

"Why do you think?" asked Stevie, sounding exasperated.

"I dunno," said Stacey.

"I do believe this is my cue to exit stage right," lamented Kurt.

"Look, I'll tell you why later. Go brush your teeth, squirt," Sam told her, and she moaned reluctantly, but hopped up. The bathroom door slammed loudly behind her, and Sam gave another sigh.

Between his deeply, massively inappropriate hard-on born entirely out of the world's most clumsy (and also inappropriate) makeout session, Stacey's befuddlement over what they were even doing, and feeling incredibly naked without his many layers of clothes, Kurt was red-hot.

"Um. I really do need to go," he murmured, patting Sam's shoulder.

"Oh – okay," Sam said, sliding off him again quickly. It left his front quite visible, with the side of his shirt pushed up and his erection bulging in Sam's thin sweats. Flustered, Kurt quickly adjusted himself, and Sam totally watched him do it, staring blatantly at his crotch even after Kurt had tucked up as best he could. "You can just wear that stuff home, if you want. I know your pants are still wet."

"Okay," Kurt agreed. Stacey was in the bathroom, anyway, and he wasn't going to change in front of Stevie. He sat up. "Will you bring me my boots?"

Sam shuffled on his knees over to the door, returning with Kurt's knee-high Docs in his hands. At just about any other time, Kurt would have loved to see Sam on his knees, doing his bidding. Right then, it made him feel like kind of a creep, because he couldn't even see it without finding it massively sexy, and wow, was this neither the time nor the place. He hadn't felt a tad guilty for enjoying watching Sam use the kneelers in his church, but it wasn't like the figure of Jesus on the cross had turned his head, thorny crown and all, and asked why he was wondering if he could findeth one of those on eBay. Briskly, Kurt plucked the socks out of his boots and jammed his feet in, not bothering to tie their laces.

"Um," Sam said, easing back on his calves and watching with his hands resting on his own knees. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine!" said Kurt. "It's just getting late! Your parents will be home soon, and I should really get going."

Sam's mouth tweaked in acceptance. "'Kay. Um. I'll... I can fold your pants, if you want."

"Thanks, honey."

After Kurt stood, Sam's sweats tucked into his slouching boots, he grabbed for his button-down and tied it around his waist. He feared it did little good.

"Bye, Kurt," said Stevie, who was looking out from behind the bed, his book in his small hands.

"Bye, sweetie," said Kurt, pretending he wasn't hiding a boner as Sam handed him the crookedly folded square of his trousers, rather formally, his phone balanced on top. They'd dried out a little. He caught himself belatedly, feeling doubly awkward. "I mean, Stevie. Sorry. I sound like my aunt Mildred!"

"'S okay," Stevie said. "And don't worry. I won't tell Mom and Dad you guys were making out."

"Oh, gosh," said Kurt, and fumbled into his pants pocket for his car keys. He felt like his face might just explode. "You're a prince. Just like your brother."

He let Sam open the door for him and follow him onto the porch, where his umbrella waited. Gone was the gray parking lot from earlier that evening, swallowed by a shining, reflective black sea sprinkled with shards of neon reflections. He shivered, but welcomed the cold air like it was a cold shower and lifted his umbrella. He was sure Mary Poppins would have a sharp and likely very lengthy word for him right about then.

"Can I walk you to your car?" asked Sam.

"Do you want to get wet again?"

"Yes," Sam said, even though it had been more of a rhetorical question.

"Squeeze under here with me, then," suggested Kurt, offering his arm.

They headed down the stairs into the parking lot, Kurt once more unsure how Sam could make it through the day with his shoes untied. His boots were tall and he still felt like he was going to lose them in a puddle, or something. His barefoot sub escorted him through the rain to his parking space, and reached out to open his car door for him in a gentlemanly manner.

"Well – thanks for, um, having me over," said Kurt, quickly moving into the open embrace between door and car to block the rain from soaking his interior.

"Hey, sorry about Stacey," said Sam, coming along. "She doesn't get it yet – she doesn't know any better."

"Oh, no, I'm the one who's sorry," Kurt told him, reaching out to clutch Sam's bicep. "I shouldn't have been kissing you in front of your siblings. I really did not mean to grab you and pull you down like that. I shouldn't have let it happen. I apologize."

Even though the rain was drumming noisily on his umbrella and the hood of his car and the pavement all around them, Kurt still heard Sam groan softly.

"It's me. I – laid you down. I got too excited."

"You got too excited? I know you saw the situation going on in these sweatpants."

"Yeah, but – I liked it," Sam said heavily, which made Kurt take a deep, damp breath full of the smells of rain hitting soil and pavement, wet grass, and his sub – who he could smell so distinctly, wearing his clothes. No amount of spins at the laundromat could take the smell of Sam's skin, soap, and deodorant out of the shirt. Patiently, Kurt moved and shut his car door again, trying to keep Sam in the sanctuary of his umbrella. Understanding that he was being granted an extra minute of time, Sam quickly said, "I shouldn't have tried that. It was too much. I didn't think about putting you in a weird position. I'm just so used to Stevie and Stacey being around and us all ignoring each other, it didn't bug me. I didn't think. But I should've. I'm sorry. I really am a freak sometimes."

"No, you're not," said Kurt, wrapping an arm around Sam's shoulder and caressing the back of his neck. "I promise. It must drive you crazy, not having any privacy. Especially when your body is so eager and you're having subby thoughts. It barely takes a nudge to get you going, and you can't do a thing about it, can you? Not till I let you."

Sam bowed his head, nodding.

"But me – I have no excuse," Kurt told him. "If Stacey hadn't woken up, I might've let you kiss me forever."

"Really?"

"Mm, and who knows what would've happened then. I could've been the one messing up your little sleeping bag. Don't think I didn't notice your hand going up my shirt. It would've wandered all over the place if I'd let it. Actually, scratch that. I know right where it would've wound up."

"Sorry," Sam whispered tensely.

Chuckling, Kurt said, "It's totally okay. I like my sub touching me. Obviously, we both liked it. Right? You... liked the kissing? And stuff?"

"Yeah. Please, I hope you consider training me."

"Sam..."

He stopped, taking careful pause. He didn't really think Sam needed any kind of coaching or guidance. He had been so – careful. Not shy, but conscientious, especially at first. If Kurt hadn't taken his typical natural initiative, it all would have been exceedingly gentle.

But he didn't know if saying that he didn't need training would sound good or bad to his sub. He knew Sam was more sensitive about his mouth than he acted; he'd clearly internalized a lot of commentary about it, telling Kurt he had blow job lips and putting Santana's nickname for him on his "Born This Way" t-shirt.

And honestly, he wasn't totally sure whether Sam actually wanted to kiss him the same way he wanted to kiss Sam. As much as Kurt had enjoyed it and wanted to kiss him, it seemed somewhat likely that his sub just wanted to earn a privilege, or really didn't have confidence in his skills. He really had been careful.

Whatever the case, it was obvious that Sam was asking him for instruction as a submissive would ask his master. That was all right, Kurt thought. And that made him respond as a master.

"Okay. I'll train you. But you have to do your part."

"I will," said Sam. "... What's my part?"

"You have to ask for kisses," decided Kurt. It felt right. It especially felt right because Karofsky had just nailed him out of nowhere with a kiss that was more of a punishment than anything else; he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a totally unwanted kiss, and didn't want to put Sam on that end. Taking care that Sam was asking for something he wanted was the opposite of what had happened with Karofsky and to Sam at his boarding school, and it gave his sub another avenue of expression and opportunity to learn that this wasn't a one-way street. He added, "And I'd like you to be specific about what you're asking for. I know you like to ask your Dom for permission."

He felt Sam inhale, their chests close together.

"When can I ask?"

"Whenever you feel like you want it."

"... Whenever?"

"Yes, whenever. If you don't want to kiss me, you never have to." He smiled and shrugged. "Honestly, I don't expect you to want to. So you should only ask if you do really, truly want it. And this isn't some kind of game I'm playing with you. There's no way any kind of punishment or penalty awaits you. There's no right or wrong to it. I just think it's exceptionally good when you ask for the things you want. I like to hear what my sub thinks and likes and wants. And I like you entrusting ultimate control to me."

A look of concentration on his face, Sam considered all that for a moment, then shook his head.

"Like... I could just ask for a kiss? Right now?"

"You could if you wanted," said Kurt, batting his lashes.

Surrendering completely and without hesitation, Sam asked, "Can I please kiss you?"

"Yes. But how do you want to kiss me?"

"Um. On the lips."

Even though he felt slightly ridiculous, Kurt said, "Kiss me, then."

Bending, Sam gave his mouth a tender smooch, his nose nudging Kurt's comfortably.

Tame as it was, it left Kurt breathless, curling his fingers into Sam's hair and whispering, "Perfect. That's not difficult, right?"

"Not at all. Can I keep kissing you? Like that?" whispered Sam. At Kurt's urging, he leaned into another kiss. His mouth was hot even in the clingy chill.

"Kurt!" cried a voice.

Too soon and too quickly, Sam and Kurt parted; Stacey was running across the porch, leaving the motel room's door open behind her. She hopped down the wet staircase – Kurt could just see her falling and scraping up her other knee – and ran towards them frantically, getting her pink nightie wet.

Kurt glanced at Sam, who sighed, his chest sinking deeply, yet suppressed his probable annoyance with a smile and shook his head, muttering, "'Course."

"Stacey! What's up, honey?" Kurt asked her, letting Sam go.

"You left!" she wailed.

"Aw, I'm sorry, princess!" said Kurt. "I didn't say goodbye to you, did I? How rude of me."

He handed the umbrella to Sam and bent to give her a truly awkward hug, silently cursing his lack of layers. Even though he wasn't as hard as he'd been, he still hoped Sam was right about Stacey not getting anything yet and that she wasn't thinking about anything but postponing her bedtime.

"Bye, Kurt," she mumbled into his shoulder, bare arms clambering around his back.

"Bye, honey."

That seemed to be all Stacey wanted, backing away and staring up at Kurt with eyes as round and puppyish as Sam's. Looking at his sub, he saw that same expression. It was one of innocence and hunger and obedience. In Stacey's case, it was probably just because he was older and taller and she literally had to look up to him.

"Be careful out in this parking lot," he told her, tilting his head and smiling. "You don't want to slip and fall or step on any sharp things. Sleep tight tonight and be good for Sam, okay?"

"Okay."

"You two better take the umbrella," Kurt advised, opening his door.

"I'll bring it back to you tomorrow," Sam said, sweeping Stacey easily up into one arm, where she dangled in her pink nightie, Band-aid visible on her knee, feet dripping.

"We'll trade," said Kurt, plucking at the raglan he was sporting. "See you at school, angel. Oh, and – you know that thing you've been wearing this week?"

"Yeah," said Sam, snapping to attention.

"Wear it again tomorrow. I'll check, so don't forget."

"I won't," Sam declared. Maybe Kurt was just biased, but he thought he could see something about Sam's posture pulling straighter, perking, like he had a sense of importance. He asked, holding the umbrella over all their heads, "Can I kiss you good night?"

"On the cheek," said Kurt, mindful of Stacey.

 

*

 

By the time Kurt made it home, he was damp and cold and in clothes that didn't belong to him, with his boots untied and his hair having officially succumbed to the rain.

He was also the dictionary definition of twitterpated. As he'd gained some distance from the motel, his kneejerk embarrassment had waned and a heady joy had reared up in its place. Training or no, he'd just actually made out with a cute boy. A cute boy who had been copping a feel of his waist before they'd been interrupted, tentatively gaining a few more inches of Kurt's bare skin. A seriously cute boy who apparently had thoughts about how he needed Kurt to train him.

He was tromping up the stairs, the soles of his boots squeaking wetly, when his dad walked past them and said, "Interesting look. Half-drowned cat is in this year, huh?"

"Oh, I forgot my umbrella," replied Kurt dreamily.

"Yeah, you did!" said his dad, and continued into the living room, chuckling heartily.

At the top of the stairs, Kurt glanced down the hall. Finn's door was open and his room was dark.

Something made him stop.

He must have stood there in the hallway for a whole minute without exactly thinking anything, just looking at the darkness beyond the tidy white jamb.

It was more of a flaring of instinct and some echoes of resentment that made Kurt turn and walk the landing to Finn's room than any one conscious thought.

He flipped the light on and peered in. Finn obviously wasn't home, but his backpack slouched in the chair next to his unmade bed. All things considered, his room wasn't too messy. Kurt had, of course, picked out a lot of storage for him when they'd moved into their new rooms, but sometimes Finn just plain didn't use it. He seemed accustomed to leaving stuff in piles under his bed, as if he still lived in a room the size of a closet. He hadn't even thrown away some of the boxes and packaging his Christmas gifts had come in several months ago.

Although he paused in the doorway, Kurt's eye quickly fell on his stepbrother's dented pillow and mussed sheets. Then it hopped to his bedside table.

When Finn and Rachel had been dating, he'd kept a framed picture of her right there, but now he was dating Quinn.

Sure enough, there was a different frame in its place. Rachel's frame had been littered in gold star stickers she'd applied herself, but Quinn's was a simple silver oval. The picture of her in it was, in a word, smug. It was like she knew she was the prettiest girl the photographer had seen all day and she was giving him a secretive look. However, another small picture leaned against the frame, a little bent, its edges rough. It was Quinn's old school portrait – the one that had gotten blown up into Lucy Caboosey posters. Even standing right next to a current picture of Quinn, Kurt could barely see any resemblance. Lucy's expression was doleful and distant, her smile forced.

Kurt had no idea whether Finn looked at these pictures and admired the mega-upgrade or if he saw what they made obvious: She was a two-faced girl.

He picked up Finn's pillow, stared for a moment at Rachel's school picture hidden under it, then dropped it again.

Obviously, Finn did have doubts about his Domme. But he had more than just doubts. He had feelings, too.

He needed to have patience with his stepbrother, Kurt realized, exiting the room and taking care to turn the light off again. He knew Quinn had a way of getting into a guy's head, just like he knew Rachel had a way of getting under people's skin.

 

*

 

"My goodness," said Kurt the next morning, "you are the most delectable thing I have ever seen."

"Is that good? Do I look cool?" Sam wanted to know. He grinned and straightened the hemp jacket Kurt had left behind at the motel over his chest. He hadn't buttoned it – but Kurt wouldn't have been surprised if his chest was so broad that he couldn't button it.

"Screw cool," Kurt responded happily, pushing the umbrella Sam had already placed in his locker further back to make room for his books. "I wanna eat you alive."

"That's good too, right?"

"Very," Kurt purred. "You're adorable. So? How'd the drive turn out for your dad? Do you think he has a shot at a job?"

"If he does, he didn't say. At this point, I think he just doesn't wanna jinx it or get our hopes up, 'cause nothing's worked out yet, even though we've been trying for months," replied Sam, the corner of his mouth twisting up. "My mom had her poker face on, too. I guess we'll see."

"Well, I hope the trip wasn't in vain. But I liked hanging out with you and Stevie and Stacey. Baby-sitting's a pretty hot date," joked Kurt.

"That reminds me," said Sam, and dug into the jacket's pocket. "Here. Stacey wrote you a letter."

"Stacey did?"

"Uh-huh," said Sam, handing Kurt a folded up square of extra wide-ruled notebook paper. "Stayed up past her bedtime to do it. Guess your bribe worked."

"God, how cute. I don't know if my heart can take much more cute." He unfolded it and read, looking over some creative seven-year-old spelling, "'Dear Kurt, Sorry I interrupted you kissing with Sam. You are his Dom. Thank you for the Rice Krispie treats. Love, Stacey Evans.' Oh my God! She drew you and me holding hands, Sam! She drew your collars on your wrists! I'm about to faint."

"I had to explain a lot of stuff to her after you left," Sam lamented.

"Oh, that's right," said Kurt, reaching for a spare magnet and tacking Stacey's note, with its happy, messy crayon figures, up on his locker door so he could admire it for the rest of the school year. "Um, what did you say?"

"That you're my Dom," Sam recited, taking Kurt's messenger bag from him, "and it means you help me and give me directions, and I'm your sub, and it means I look up to you and would do anything for you, and I belong to you, and that's what my collars mean. And 'cause I belong to you, it means sometimes holding hands and kissing and all that mushy stuff. It doesn't have to be like boyfriend-girlfriend. And it doesn't matter if we're both guys, 'cause... we can all be with whoever we want to be with."

"Hm," Kurt responded approvingly. "Maybe I should have you explain it to my stepbrother."

"Oh, and you can't kiss with tongue till you're in high school," added Sam. "If she asks you, it's a rule."

"Gotcha. Stacey doesn't seem like she'd mind a little rule-bending, though," Kurt commented.

"Uh, hopefully I'll be, like, married by the time she starts thinking about bending the kinds of rules we break all the time," Sam said.

Biting down on a smile, Kurt handed Sam the red and gray raglan, which he'd neatly folded and tucked into his bag, then his sweatpants.

"Thanks!"

"Mm-hm! Thanks for letting me borrow them. I washed the sweatpants for you, but to be honest, I slept in the shirt, so."

"You did?"

Lifting the shirt to his face, Sam gave it a curious sniff. Kurt reached over and playfully tugged at the lapel of his trench.

He took Sam to his locker so they could get his books and stow his clothes there, and to his delight, Sam opted to keep Kurt's jacket on. Sort of like the _Breakfast At Tiffany's_ sleep mask, the fact that it didn't quite suit him was what made it so completely adorable to Kurt. His army print cuffs peeked out from the sleeves of it, but Sam wearing a jacket with a floral design artfully stamped on it instead of his usual letter jacket was quite the statement of who owned him in itself. He could hear Finn's voice in his head. _Why don't you just paint a target on his back? Do you know what a joke you guys are?_

"Boys' room," Kurt said briskly.

It was empty, but surely only for a matter of seconds. However, Sam readily submitted to simply being turned across a sink, Kurt pushing his unhemmed jacket up into the small of his back and catching at his jeans with one finger to take himself a peek.

"Mmm, very good," Kurt told him, catching Sam's breathless and somewhat amazed expression in the mirror. He gave his sub's bottom a light, playful football slap and watched his eyelids fall shut for a brief but rewarding moment. Then one of the guys from the hockey team walked in, mullet and everything. The puckhead gave them a weird look, so Kurt took Sam by the elbow, pulled him up straight, and lead him out again.

When they parted by the French room, Sam pulled himself out of a slight stupor and asked if he could kiss Kurt's cheek.

"Mais oui, mon petit."

"That means yes?" asked Sam.

"Absolument," Kurt replied with a coy smile.

"I have to learn French," said his sub.

 

*

 

After a tense glee, Kurt met up with Blaine at the bustling Lima Bean, and the two had barely taken their seats at a table by the window when Blaine said, "I hope things aren't as awkward this time as they were last time."

"They don't have to be," Kurt offered.

"Good," said Blaine brightly. "I just want you to know that I'm totally over it."

"Over what, exactly?"

"You're actually making me say it," he said, and chuckled as if he'd expected this somehow.

"Oh, I'm not making you do anything!" Kurt countered.

Smiling at his coffee cup, Blaine said in a clear voice, "I don't regret telling you what I did, but I'm over it. I'm not confused. I'm not questioning myself. You and I are friends. I have faith we can just put it behind us, and I don't want you to police yourself so much we can't have a decent conversation anymore. You can continue speaking to me as a Dom, and know that I will respond to you only as a Dom. And a friend. A friend who is a Dom."

"Ah," said Kurt, straightening his crooked coffee lid till it snapped in place. "Okay, then. Whatever you say."

"So," Blaine hurried on. "Update me. What's New Directions doing this week?"

"One word: _Rumours._ "

"Shut up! I'm so jealous!"

"Sam and I are toying with doing 'You Make Loving Fun.'"

"Double jealous," said Blaine with a slightly self-conscious laugh. "What a great choice. But there's not a bad song on that album, so you can't really go wrong."

"Who knows if we'll ever get to rehearse it, though," said Kurt. "Sam's schedule is so packed that when I do get a chance to see him, singing is fairly low on the list of things I want to do with him."

"Are you still on the fence about punishing him?"

"Punishing him, yes," he answered, shifting in his seat and examining Blaine's casual expression surreptitiously. "Spanking him... no. But I shouldn't say any more!"

"I shouldn't have asked!" Blaine agreed. "Just, um – that means you've spanked him since we talked about it, right?"

"I can't say," sang Kurt. "Someone might be spying."

"Spying? Come on."

"Oh, no, it's true! People think you and I have been seeing each other on the downlow. Our school newspaper's been publishing all kinds of trash. I even saw Finn toting around a pair of binoculars. I have to assume there are eyes and ears everywhere, hanging on my every scintillating word."

"Well, in the defense of anyone who may be eavesdropping, our conversations do tend to be juicy. Last time, we had a very tabloid-worthy disagreement about whether it was cool for this time of year or warm for this time of year."

"And I have been texting you frequently about Ricki Lake getting a new talk show."

"I'm as pumped as you are."

"I doubt that."

The two chatted without aim, and even though they were still keeping it super casual, Kurt actually felt like his friendship with Blaine could probably go back to normal, given more time. Maybe Kurt really could go to his junior prom with a guy. He knew Blaine wasn't the wallflower type, so it was easy to imagine dancing with him and having a good time, as friends. He decided to think about it a little more, even though prom was coming up in just a couple of weeks. It wasn't like he'd found a suitable tux yet... not that he'd been looking. Okay, he'd been looking. But not in earnest. He couldn't help but remember Sam saying that he looked good in a suit, and also couldn't help wanting to outdo his Easter garb and see if Sam would say anything like that again.

Jeez, he really had to let go of the fantasy of going to prom with Sam. Even when he tried to think about going with Blaine, his brain turned back to Sam, just as it always turned back to Sam when he was chatting with Blaine.

As his cup neared empty, Kurt finally said, "You know, before we go, I feel like I need to tell you that I support you, Blaine, and I do think of you as a Dom."

"Oh," said Blaine, his brow perking. "Well. Thank you!"

"But honestly," he continued, "I think I know what your 'Born This Way' t-shirt would say."

"Do enlighten me," Blaine said evenly.

"'Switch Hitter.'"

"Umm. I thought we were putting that behind us."

"It is behind us. It's not an issue. That's what I'm saying. I want you to know that you don't have to police yourself, either. I just think it's best to keep it honest."

Blaine responded, dark lashes lowered, "Okay. I agree. I just don't want you to get so cagey when we talk domination. I'm not trying to envision myself in your sub's place – nor am I trying to imagine being his Dom. I just like talking about this stuff with you for the same reason you used to like talking about it with me. I don't know that many gay kids, and I know zero in binding, public agreements, complete with collar. We don't have to talk about sex. I know it can sometimes make you uncomfortable."

"Tell me the truth," Kurt said suddenly. "Are there guys hooking up at Dalton? You have a discretionary, but don't use it. What's up with that?"

"Um... well, you know Dalton. Remember what you asked the first time we met – if we were all gay? Sure, some of us are, but more importantly, we're all like brothers. When guys there pair off, it's usually just because they have a natural fraternal dynamic. It's pretty impolite to assume or inquire if it goes beyond that. Even if it totally does and it's an open secret, Dalton's atmosphere is designed to protect its students. Harassment isn't tolerated, so any kind of behavior that could be construed as harassment can be a black mark on your name. But, yes, now and then, some of our gay students will go public with an official relationship. Either way, you have to be pretty sure of yourself to use the discretionary."

"Hm. I suppose it's a little different than a boarding school environment," said Kurt. "I bet at Dalton it doesn't matter if you're a Dom or sub, really. You don't put pressure on orientation and you can all just go home at the end of the day. You're not breathing down each other's necks."

"We certainly don't discriminate, nor do we get our creep on," confirmed Blaine. "Don't tell me you're thinking of transferring."

"The Warblers should be so lucky. And no. No way would I leave Sam alone with the vultures at McKinley."

"Ah, of course not."

"Anyway, did I tell you how my soft room makeover turned out?"

"No, you didn't! I didn't think you'd been back to it in a while."

"Well," Kurt said, "my sub needed some seeing to last week."

"I imagine he did," Blaine said with a familiar little twinkle in his eye.

"What a day he had..." As wrong as it was, Kurt wasn't beyond admitting to himself that some attention-loving part of him liked sharing this kind of thing with Blaine, just like he truthfully did feel intrigued by drama and scandals and gossip. He wasn't about to share Sam's private business, but still, a little Dom shop talk didn't hurt. "He tried so hard to be good."

"Ah, you're teasing me," Blaine declared.

"I am, I am," said Kurt happily. "Sorry."

"So, the soft room. Is it now soft? Or did you go for a more hardcore theme?"

"Well, first off, they didn't even look at the plan that proposed manacles..."

 

*

 

Come 9:45, and Kurt called Sam before Sam could call him.

"Kurt, hey," Sam greeted him eagerly.

"Hi, sweetie. How's work tonight?"

"Ugh, fine, I guess. Truthfully, I'm kinda beat. Now I know why they say T.G.I.F."

"Aw, really? Are you too beat to do a little something for me?"

"Never too beat for you," replied his sub.

"Oh, I'm glad to hear it."

"Tell me what to do," said Sam.

Kurt could tell that he'd snagged his sub's attention. He paused for effect, but not for too long, since they only had a fifteen-minute window.

"You're still wearing your jock strap, aren't you, Sam. You've been wearing them all week for me and passed all your checks with flying colors," said Kurt, flashing back to his hand planted on Sam's back, right next to the blue flower printed on his jacket, and to Sam bending over the sink in the boys' room in an obedient flop.

"Yes," Sam breathed.

"Mm, that's my good boy. Go to the bathroom and take it off. I'll be waiting for you to bring it to me."

"Bring it to you?"

"Mm-hmm!"

"Are you coming here? Or d'you want me to, like... deliver it?"

"What a cute idea. Maybe I'll have you deliver your edible self right to my doorstep one of these days. But, you guessed it," said Kurt, leaning back in his seat and tapping his steering wheel. "I'm already here. So how 'bout it, cutie? Will you bring me your jock?"

"Yeah!" said Sam. If he thought the idea was weird, it certainly didn't show. "'Course."

"I'm waiting."

"'Kay! Be right out," said Sam, and hung up, leaving Kurt to trace his teeth with his tongue, grinning as he accessed his phone's timer once more.

Moving with certainty, Kurt slid out of his car, shutting the door behind him and eyeing the storefront window. Sam had parked in the exact same space as last time, so Kurt had done the same, parking next to him. That sense of having set a good precedent rushed to him immediately, as electric and flickering in the cool but humid May night as the Nice Slice sign. He merely waited, knowing that indoors, Sam was doing his bidding and getting his pants off, unbeknownst to his employers. He could imagine Sam's dick hanging free, bobbing as it hardened, and him trying to tuck it in his loose-fit jeans.

Half a minute later, the shop door swung open with a tinkle of its bell, and Sam jostled his way out, one tipped elbow leading the way. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he'd left his white visor inside. Kurt didn't even need to call him over; his sub found him immediately and hurried over as casually as he could manage. As soon as he rounded the front of the van, Sam was pulling one fist from his pocket, white straps hanging out the sides of it.

He offered it with wordless excitement, clearly happy to be able to follow directions.

"For me?" Kurt teased, lifting his hand just to stroke one dangling strap.

"For you."

"Just what I wanted," Kurt said, taking the light stitch of underwear from his sub and giving its firm elastic waistband a casual snap right there in the parking lot. The fabric was still totally warm with Sam's body heat. "Are those keys in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Both," Sam managed, huffing sheepishly. It made Kurt giggle, but he pulled his face straight.

"What a good answer. How about you unlock this door?"

He heard Sam let out an eager exhale and smirked, watching him as he turned the key in the lock and opened the sliding door.

He offered Kurt a hand, but Kurt said, "You first, sweetie. Take whatever seat you want."

Complying immediately, Sam climbed in. There was as much stuff taking up space as last time, but everything was in a different place, giving Kurt the impression that the Evans family lived out of the van to a certain extent, storing stuff as needed. He saw some clothes in laundry baskets waiting to be taken to the laundromat, a pile of extra towels, and a couple of naked, depressed-looking pillows. Sam moved the towels from behind the passenger seat, stacking them up on the pillows in the very back seat, then settled himself and again offered Kurt a hand, reaching out from within.

Kurt took it with a smile, stepping up into the vehicle and sliding past Sam, who closed the door after him without being asked.

Once it was good and shut, Kurt pushed the arm rest on Sam's seat out of the way and draped himself over Sam's lap, his back to the sliding door. Long, muscular arms clutched him.

"What do you think this little visit is for?"

"Do I get to service you again?" his sub responded. There was a shred of doubt in his voice, but his eyes were hopeful anyway. While the ceiling light was still on, Kurt admired his beautiful face and ready mouth. It was amazing to realize that Sam would, if he wanted, use those curvaceous, offensively pink lips on his dick. Actually, it was also amazing to realize that Sam wanted to use them for kissing, too.

Pleased, Kurt gave his sub's nose a nudge with his own, dropping a light kiss on those lips.

"Wouldn't that make you a happy sub."

"Yes," Sam breathed. "Please?"

Leaving Sam's jock strap in his own lap, Kurt lifted his phone and set his alarm for ten minutes while Sam watched him with bated breath, then tapped the start button. It started ticking away, draining time out from under them. He leaned and set it on top of the nearest pile of laundry.

"Before that goes off, you're going to give me your come," he informed Sam, watching his expression go from eager to elated to slightly dizzy. Something about where his features ended up seemed to register some consternation, too, so Kurt added, "It's been a long week, and you've been such a good boy, waiting all this time to be allowed to get off. I know you need to. And I want to let you. Aren't you ready to blow your load, Sam?"

"Y – Yeah," Sam faltered.

"Why don't we see how long it takes?" Kurt suggested, mainly to tease him as he worked open Sam's belt. "Won't take too long, I bet."

The ceiling light went out overhead, leaving Sam's face in shadow, but he laid his hand on Kurt's knee, squeezing it timidly. He seemed a tad shell-shocked.

"Touch your head rest," Kurt told him, and when Sam did, arms up and elbows bent, he whispered, "That's right. Keep your hands there. Move them and I'll be forced to tie them. And I'll use your jock strap to do it."

"'Kay," Sam managed. With his arms up, it spread him out for Kurt to access in any way he wanted. It wasn't a huge difference in position, but Kurt still felt it, and judging by the way his head eased back against the rest he was clutching, Sam did, too.

Focusing, hands working between them, Kurt got Sam's belt open as quickly as he could, and after a hazy second, Sam seemed to realize that despite his pseudo-bondage, he wasn't blindfolded this time, and dropped his chin to peer down as Kurt popped loose the button on his jeans and eased down his zip. The sunny yellow Nice Slice polo had been hastily tucked into the front of his jeans, but nothing else impeded Kurt from sliding his hand right into them and squeezing his sub's bare cock.

Sam's breath caught and skipped jaggedly in his throat, managing to make him sound like he was squeezing five or six gasps into one.

"Aw, that sounded like it felt good," Kurt commented, feeling Sam's dick twitch forcefully in his hand. He pulled it right up and out of the loosened denim, thumb fondly sliding over the crown. Under his weight, Sam's thighs flexed. His body was taking a hard shift into responding to him, even though Kurt could tell just how actually unexpected the attention was and knew his instinct was to somehow try and keep control of his body. Perhaps some of that training was Quinn's, but Kurt had taken it and made use of it, twisted it to suit Sam's needs a little more. He had, at least, successfully pried Sam away from blurting out shame-faced apologies when something felt good to him. In Kurt's opinion, that was major. He asked, "Hm? Sam? Does it feel good for me to touch you?"

It took a stunned few seconds, but Sam admitted, "Yeh – yes."

"That's it," he murmured soothingly, stroking his erection slowly. "I like my sub to feel good, don't I? I love getting your dick hard and playing with it whenever I want."

"K –" Sam started, letting out the beginning of his Dom's name, but he got caught in the pumping Kurt was giving his cock and took a minute to choke it out. "Kurt."

"Mm-hmm. I'm right here, cutie. I'm with you this time. Instead of touching yourself in here, begging over the phone to service me, and having to stop, now you get to shoot your load for your Dom before you go back to work."

Whatever his sub's thoughts on that were, Sam's cock couldn't have been harder. He let out a soft, "Mmf."

"You're giving it up to me, aren't you. All that self-control. All that willpower." Even as he said it, Kurt could tell Sam's grip on himself was slipping. He urged, "Hand it over to me now. Let go of it for me, Sam."

Sam's groan, vibrating in his chest right against Kurt's side, sounded almost reluctant. His left knee was moving under Kurt's, his legs pushing open, and Kurt could feel his belly sinking and his chest rising and tension flattening him to the back of the seat.

Lowering his voice to a coaxing murmur, Kurt continued, "You don't have to hold anything back. Let go. Let go, sweetie. Do you wanna do that for me?"

"Yes, Kurt," rasped Sam urgently.

"Oh, good boy," Kurt responded, loving the hiccough that wrenched out of his sub when he heard those words of praise. He sped his leisurely pace, pulling in increasingly concentrated tugs around the ridge at the neck of Sam's burning hot cock, the flesh in his fingers so rigid for him that it made Sam's need even more naked and close. Now it really felt like he was just totally jerking Sam off. "Aren't you my good boy?"

"God, please, please!" scraped from Sam's tight throat.

"You're gonna come for your Dom, aren't you. C'mon, Sam."

He felt his sub freezing in it, dangling for a sweet, all too short second, and snatched at the jock strap just in time to catch the load that shot out of him, hot and frantic, pumping right through Kurt's fingers and out of his slit like a geyser. 

"That's it!" Kurt exclaimed under his breath, triumphant. "That's a good little sub."

Gutted half-shouts quickly became weak whimpers that resounded in Sam's body, making his legs quiver. Kurt's hands were full, one sliding along his sub's dick, jacking him through it, the other managing to hold the totally sopping jock strap Sam was thoroughly creaming, catching each harsh blurt of come. Sam's dick pulsed around more and more, like he literally couldn't stop now that the dam had broken, and to Kurt's surprise, the compulsive quiver of Sam's thighs grew into harsh shudders. His voice shook vulnerably as he gasped and quaked. He might have actually fallen off the seat or something if Kurt hadn't been seated right on him.

"Oh my God," Kurt let out in amazement. Sam had done all kinds of wiggling for him before, but he'd never seen an orgasm seize his whole body like this. His muscles weren't just jerking. They were vibrating, deep involuntary shivers that grew and crested beneath him. "You needed that so bad, didn't you!"

"Hah-h-h-h," Sam squeaked. The full-body shudders seemed to hit a peak and subside into smaller, uncontrollable tremors.

"Shh, shh. Goodness. You're all right," Kurt whispered attentively, and laughed in utter delight. He couldn't even believe he'd made his sub come like this. He didn't hesitate to jack Sam's cock a little more, feeling how hard he still was and how his body was still caught in that orgasm. The anguished noise and squirm that got him almost made him stop, but Sam's flesh pulsed around another firm gush of jizz. Kurt could feel it pumping right out of him. He let out another chuckle, pleased and breathy. "Got more for me? What a good boy. I won't be satisfied till you give it all up."

That skimpy jock strap never stood a chance. Its pouch was too thin to withstand the spatters Kurt milked out till Sam was empty and his hard shaft finally started to soften in Kurt's grip. His hand was slick with spunk.

"Did I wring you dry?" he asked Sam.

"Holy sh-i-i-it," rattled out of Sam in a choppy breath. He flexed for a hot second, but gave it up as his left knee responded to him trying to get ahold of things by bouncing like someone was strumming on a pressure point, even with Kurt's knees both hooked over it.

"Relax. We've still got –" Kurt reached for his phone to check. "Hm! Five minutes. Pretty good. You can put your hands down again."

"N-n-n," Sam managed. Judging by the fact that he didn't budge, Kurt thought maybe he just couldn't ask anything of his limbs yet. So he just smirked and rested his cheek on Sam's shoulder, basking in the heat radiating from Sam's throat and pits and chest.

 

*

 

Kurt slid out of the Evans' van with Sam's heavily soiled jock leaking its contents all over his previously pristine pocket square.

He maybe should've cared about possibly completely ruining his pocket square. But he simply did not. He wrapped it up snugly around the jock strap, the sharp and bitter scent of Sam's come still strong even in the cool, fresh air, and tucked it into his back pocket. (As bold a look as stuffing his sub's jizz-soaked underwear into his breast pocket would have been, he did care about his dad's cardiac health.)

Said sub's legs spilled out the door. He slid heavily from his seat, a sexed up flush still ripe on his neck.

"Can you make it?" Kurt asked him, wondering if Sam would once again stand and find himself unexpectedly weak.

But Sam said, "Uh-huh."

"Oh, your supervisor is waiting," Kurt noted, looking over his shoulder at an impatient figure standing in the storefront.

"Oh," Sam managed, reaching for his half-done belt. "Must have a delivery."

Kurt gave the figure a wave, wondering if the guy had any clue he was Sam's Dom. Ducking his chin, Sam fumbled with his belt, fingers less articulate than usual.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," his sub reported sheepishly, his ears a lovely shade of red. "'M good."

He looked slightly glazed and sleepy, but now that Kurt had seen him pulling at restraints and moaning and completely peaced out, he couldn't mistake his sub's naturally floaty afterglow for a trip into deep space. Sam was draggy, sweaty, and sated, not doped up and incoherent. Either look was a good look for him, though, Kurt thought. But he was biased.

"Aren't you just," he purred. "I hope you don't think you're off the hook now, though."

"... I'm still on a hook?"

Although Sam's eyes were wide, Kurt didn't detect apprehension in the response so much as a breathless interest.

"Monday morning I expect you to bring me another one of your jock straps. I expect it to be full of your come just like this one. I know you can do that for me, Sam. Can't you?"

Smiling, Kurt watched Sam slowly puzzle that out.

"Full of it?" he echoed. "Like..."

"Mm-hmm. I want you to jack off into it. Wipe yourself clean with it. Then hand it to me at my locker on Monday morning."

Blinking, Sam just stood there. Kurt could pretty much see the gears turning in his head. Maybe he was wondering what Kurt wanted such a thing for. Maybe he was just wondering when and where he could obey this command. Or maybe he was trying to figure out how he was going to conceal it; now that Kurt had hung around in his motel room with him, he had a new understanding of just how little privacy and personal space Sam lived with. But he also knew that at his urging, Sam had managed to overcome whatever mental block it was that kept him from even trying to jerk off. In fact, until Kurt had told him he had to wait for permission, he'd gotten into a refreshingly healthy pattern of getting off every night.

"Jack off," Sam repeated.

"Yep."

"... Once? Or. Uh. Is it, like..."

"Permission," agreed Kurt. "You can jerk off all you want."

"And I'm s'posed to come?" Sam asked weakly.

"Yes. You have your Dom's permission to come however much you want. Until I tell you otherwise."

He watched Sam carefully consider his words.

"In fact," he added loftily, "if you feel like it, I recommend you do it as much as possible while you can. You held off for me when I asked you to, and now your body deserves to feel good. I'm giving you two whole days to dirty up a jock strap for me. Do you think you can take good advantage of this weekend and do what I ask?"

"Yeah," Sam breathed.

The bell on the shop door jingled, and a guy called, "Evans! Break's over!"

"Coming," Sam yelled back, then made a weird face at the unintentional double entendre.

"Well, then. On that note, good night, sexy." Kurt reached out and tweaked Sam's red cheek, beaming at him. "If you have any more questions, you can call me. I like your questions."

"Yeah," said Sam, heartened. "I know. Um. Can I kiss you good night?"

"See? You always have good questions," said Kurt, giving his sub a smile. "Yes. You can kiss me good night."

He wasn't quite prepared for Sam's hands, big and broad, to clutch him under the jaw and bring him in for the kiss, feverish and sweaty and right on the mouth.

This time it was Kurt's legs that trembled.


End file.
